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OSMANIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

CallNo.  3  0<g,f    J  7f  H       AccessionNo.   3 

Author 

Tjtle 

piis  book  should  be  returned  on  or  before  the  date  last  marked  below. 


HEROIC  POETRY 


HEROIC  POETRY 


BY 

C.  M.  BOWRA 


LONDON 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.  LTD 
1952 


This  book  is  copyright  in  all  countries  which 
are  signatories  to  the  Berne  Convention 


TO 

ISAIAH  BERLIN 


PRINTED  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN 


PREFACE 

THIS  book  is  a  development  of  some  work  which  I  did  twenty- 
five  years  ago  when  I  was  studying  the  Homeric  poems.  It 
seemed  to  me  then  that  many  vexed  questions  might  be  clarified 
by  a  comparative  study  of  other  poems  of  the  same  kind.  This 
belief  was  greatly  strengthened  when,  in  1932,  H.  M.  and  N.  K. 
Chadwick  published  the  first  volume  of  their  great  work  The 
Growth  of  Literature.  To  it,  and  its  two  subsequent  volumes, 
I  owe  more  than  I  can  say,  and  its  influence  may  be  discerne.fl 
in  most  parts  of  my  book.  Though  heroic  poetry  is  only  tone  (?i 
several  subjects  treated  by  the  Chadwicks,  their  analytical  examina- 
tion of  it  shows  what  it  is  in  a  number  of  countries  and  establishes 
some  of  its  main  characteristics.  This  present  book  aims  largely 
at  continuing  the  subject  where  they  stop,  first  by  using  material 
which  was  not  available  to  them  at  the  time  of  writing,  secondly 
by  trying  to  make  a  closer  synthesis  than  they  attempted,  and 
thirdly  by  giving  attention  to  many  points  on  which  they  did  not 
have  time  to  touch.  The  result  will,  I  hope,  provide  a  kind  of 
anatomy  of  heroic  poetry  and  show  that  there  is  a  general  type 
which  persists  through  many  variations.  The  variations  are  of 
course  as  important  as  the  main  type,  and  I  have  given  consider- 
able space  to  them.  The  work  is  therefore  one  of  comparative 
literature  in  the  sense  that  by  comparing  many  examples  and 
aspects  of  a  poetical  form  it  tries  to  illuminate  the  nature  of  that 
form  and  the  ways  in  which  it  works. 

Where  so  much  material  is  available,  I  have  naturally  had  to 
limit  my  choice  from  it.  I  have  excluded  any  literature  which  is 
not  strictly  heroic  in  the  sense  which  I  have  given  to  the  word. 
That  is  why  nothing  is  said  about  the  old-Indian  epics,  in  which 
a  truly  heroic  foundation  is  overlaid  with  much  literary  and 
theological  matter,  or  about  Celtic,  either  Irish  or  Welsh,  since 
neither  presents  many  examples  of  heroic  narrative  in  verse,  or 
about  Persian,  in  which  much  genuine  material  has  been  trans- 
formed by  later  literary  poets.  I  have  also  excluded  from  con- 
sideration anything  written  in  languages  unknown  to  me,  of  which  I 
have  found  no  translations  available.  Thus  the  reader  will  find  no- 
thing about  Albanian  or  Buryat,  though  heroic  poems  have  been 
published  in  both.  For  quite  different  reasons  I  have  confined 


HEROIC  POETRY 

my  study  of  French  heroic  poetry  to  the  Chanson  de  Roland  and 
have  neglected  the  whole  mass  of  other  chansons  de  gesie.  My 
reason  for  this  is  partly  that  the  Chanson  de  Roland  seems  to 
me  the  best  example  of  its  kind,  partly  that  a  close  analysis  and 
examination  of  the  other  texts  would  not  only  take  many  years 
but  upset  the  balance  of  this  book. 

The  texts  which  I  have  studied  fall  into  three  classes.  First, 
with  Greek,  whether  ancient  or  modern,  French,  Spanish, 
German,  and  the  Slavonic  languages  I  have  used  the  original 
texts  and  usually  translated  them  myself,  though  I  am  grateful 
to  help  from  C.  K.  Scott-Moncrieff's  Roland,  W.  A.  Morison's 
versions  from  the  Serb,  and  Mrs.  N.  K.  Chadwick's  from  the 
Russian.  Secondly,  since  I  do  not  know  either  Anglo-Saxon  or 
Norse,  I  have  used  respectively  the  versions  of  C.  K.  Scott- 
Moncrieff  and  H.  A.  Bellows,  though  I  have  not  entirely  confined 
myself  to  them.  Thirdly,  for  Asiatic  texts,  of  which  no  English 
versions  exist,  I  have  used  versions  in  other  languages,  usually 
Russian,  which  I  have  translated  into  English.  In  the  exceptional 
case  of  Gilgamish  I  have  made  my  own  version  from  the  Russian 
of  N.  Gumilev  and  the  English  of  R.  Campbell  Thompson.  In 
some  cases,  where  no  texts  have  been  available,  I  have  used 
information  about  them  from  books  of  learning,  though  I  have 
not  often  done  this,  and  then  only  when  I  have  had  full  confi- 
dence in  the  trustworthiness  of  the  author.  I  fully  realise  that 
this  is  by  no  means  a  perfect  method.  It  would  certainly  have 
been  better  to  work  only  with  original  texts  in  every  case  and 
not  to  use  translations  at  all.  But  a  work  of  this  kind  would 
require  a  knowledge  of  nearly  thirty  languages,  and  not  only  am 
I  myself  unlikely  ever  to  acquire  such  a  knowledge,  but  I  do  not 
know  of  anyone  interested  in  the  subject  who  has  it.  So  I  must 
ask  indulgence  for  a  defect  which  seems  to  be  inevitable  if  such  a 
work  is  to  be  attempted  at  all. 

I  am  also  conscious  of  other  faults  in  handling  this  mass  of 
disparate  material.  The  transliteration  of  unusual  names  is,  I 
fear,  too  often  inconsistent  or  incorrect.  It  has  been  impossible 
to  avoid  a  certain  amount  of  repetition,  since  the  same  passages 
illustrate  different  points  in  different  contexts.  The  mass  of 
material  may  discourage  some  readers  by  its  unfamiliar ity,  but  I 
have  done  my  best  to  make  it  intelligible.  Above  all,  the  diffi- 
culty of  getting  books  from  eastern  Europe  has  prevented  me 
from  being  as  detailed  as  I  should  wish  on  certain  points. 

I  owe  thanks  to  many  people  for  help  generously  given  ;  to 
Mr.  A.  B.  Lord  for  introducing  me  to  the  unique  collection  of 


VI 


PREFACE 

Jugoslav  poems  recorded  by  Milman  Parry  and  now  in  the 
Widener  Library  of  Harvard  University  ;  to  Mr.  F.  W.  Deakin 
for  the  invaluable  gift  of  Karadzic's  Srpske  Narodne  Pjesme ;  to 
Professor  H.  T.  Wade-Gery  for  much  helpful  criticism  ;  to  Mrs. 
N.  K.  Chadwick  for  the  generous  gift  of  a  book  otherwise  unobtain- 
able ;  to  Professors  J.  E.  Finley,  O.  Maenchen,  and  R.  M.  Dawkins, 
Dr.  G.  Katkov,  Dr.  J.  H.  Thomas,  Mr.  A.  Andrewes,  Mr.  J.  B.  Barn- 
borough,  Dr.  J.  K.  Bostock,  Mr.  W.  A.  C.  H.  Dobson,  who  have 
given  time  and  trouble  to  helping  me  ;  and  finally  to  authors  and 
publishers  for  leave  to  quote  extracts  from  books  —  the  American 
Scandinavian  Foundation,  New  York,  for  H.  A.  Bellows,  The 
Poetic  Edda  ;  Mrs.  N.  K.  Chadwick  and  the  Cambridge  Univer- 
sity Press  for  Russian  Heroic  Poetry  ;  Mr.  W.  A.  Morison  and  the 
Cambridge  University  Press  for  The  Revolt  of  the  Serbs  against 
the  Turks ;  Professor  W.  J.  Entwistle  and  the  Clarendon  Press 
for  European  Balladry  ;  to  the  executor  of  the  late  C.  K.  Scott- 
Moncrieff  and  Messrs.  Chapman  &  Hall  for  The  Song  of  Roland 
and  Beowulf]  to  Mr.  Arthur  Waley  and  Messrs.  Constable  &  Co., 
for  170  Chinese  Poems  ;  Messrs.  George  Allen  &  Unwin  for  The 
Book  of  Songs  ;  and  the  proprietors  of  Botteghe  Oscure  for  Kutune 
Shirka.  Finally,  I  owe  a  great  debt  to  Miss  G.  Feith  for  com- 
piling the  Index  and  to  Mr.  R.  H.  Dundas  for  his  careful  scrutiny 
of  my  proofs.  For  such  errors  as  remain  I  alone  am  responsible, 


vu 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  THE  HEROIC  POEM  i 

II.  THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION  48 

III.  THE  HERO  91 

IV.  THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND  132 
V.  THE  MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE  179 

VI.  THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION  :  LANGUAGE  215 

VII.  THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION  :  DEVICES  OF 

NARRATIVE  254 

VIII.  SOME  PECULIARITIES  OF  COMPOSITION  299 

IX.  SCALE  AND  DEVELOPMENT  330 

X.  TRADITION  AND  TRANSMISSION  368 

XI.  THE  BARD  404 

XII.  INSIDE  THE  TRADITION  443 

XIII.  VARIETIES  OF  HEROIC  OUTLOOK  476 

XIV.  HEROIC  POETRY  AND  HISTORY  508 
XV.  THE  DECLINE  OF  HEROIC  POETRY  537 

LIST  OF  ABBREVIATIONS  569 

INDEX  575 


I 

THE  HEROIC  POEM 

I  N  their  attempts  to  classify  mankind  in  different  types  the  early 
Greek  philosophers  gave  a  special  place  to  those  men  who  live 
for  action  and  for  the  honour  which  comes  from  it.  Such,  they 
believed,  are  moved  by  an  important  element  in  the  human  soul, 
the  self-assertive  principle,  which  is  to  be  distinguished  equally 
from  the  appetites  and  from  the  reason  and  realises  itself  in  brave 
doings.  They  held  that  the  life  of  action  is  superior  to  the  pursuit 
o£profit  or  the^gratification  of  tKe'jTeases+J^^ 
.honour  is  himself  an  honourable -figujej  and  when  Pythagoras" 
likened  human  beings  to  the  different  types  to  be  seen  at  the 
Olympic  Games,  he  paid  the  lovers  of  honour  the  compliment 
of  comparing  them  with  the  competing  athletes.1  The  Greeks  of 
the  sixth  and  fifth  centuries  B.C.  regarded  the  men  whom  Homer 
had  called  heroes  —  TJpajes  —  as  a  generation  of  superior  beings 
who  sought  and  deserved  honour.  They  believed  that  Greek 
history  had  contained  a  heroic  age,  when  the  dominant  type  was 
of  this  kind,  and  they  could  point  to  the  testimony  of  Hesiod, 
who,  in  his  analysis  of  the  ages  of  humanity,  places  between  the 
ages  of  bronze  and  of  iron  an  age  of  heroes  who  fought  at  Thebes 
and  at  Troy : 

Again  on  the  bountiful  earth  by  heaven  was  sent 

A  worthier  race  ;  on  righteous  deeds  they  were  bent, 

Divine,  heroic  —  as  demigods  they  are  known, 

And  the  boundless  earth  had  their  race  before  our  own. 

Some  of  them  met  grim  war  and  its  battle-fates  : 

In  the  land  of  Kadmos  at  Thebes  with  seven  gates 

They  fought  for  Oedipus'  flocks  disastrously, 

Or  were  drawn  to  cross  the  gulf  of  mighty  sea 

For  sake  of  Helen  tossing  her  beautiful  hair, 

And  death  was  the  sudden  shroud  that  wrapped  them  there.2 

Archaeology  and  legend  suggest  that  Hesiod  was  not  entirely  at 
fault  and  that  there  was  once  such  a  time  as  he  outlines.    It  left 

1  Cicero,  Tusc.  Disp.  v,  9. 

2  Works  and  Days,  156-65.     Trs.  J.  Lindsay.     In  his  edition,  p.  16,  T.  A. 
Sinclair  connects  the  theory  of  the  Five  Ages  with  the  teaching  of  Zarathustra, 
who  believed  in  four  ages,  each  of  a  thousand  years.     In  that  case,  as  Sinclair 
arcrues.  the  Heroic  Age  is  Hesiod's  addition  to  an  ancient  scheme. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

memories  and  traces  in  Greek  epic  poetry,  and  the  later  Greeks 
looked  back  to  it  with  delighted  admiration.  Homer  makes  no 
attempt  to  conceal  its  superiority  to  his  own  time,1  and  even  the 
critical  Heraclitus  concedes  that  such  an  existence  is  impressive 
in  its  pursuit  of  honour :  for  "  they  choose  one  thing  above  all 
others,  immortal  glory  among  mortals  ".2  It  is  significant  that 
even  in  the  fourth  century  B.C.  Aristotle  regarded  honour  not 
only  as  "  the  prize  appointed  for  the  noblest  deeds  "  but  as  "  the 
greatest  of  external  goods  ".3  In  Greece  the  conception  of  the 
heroic  life  began  early  and  lasted  long,  and  from  it,  more  than 
from  anything  else,  our  own  conceptions  of  heroes  and  heroism 
are  derived. 

The  Greeks,  however,  were  not  alone  in  their  respect  for  a 
superior  class  of  men  who  lived  for  honour.  The  chevalier  of 
mediaeval  French  epic  is  in  every  way  as  heroic  as  a  Greek  hero, 
and  acts  from  similar  motives.  To  the  same  family  belong  the 
Spanish  caballero,  the  Anglo-Saxon  cempa,  the  Russian  bogatyr* 
the  Old  German  held,  the  Norse  farl,  the  Tatar  batyr,  the  Serb 
yunak,  the  Albanian  trim,  and  the  Uzbek  pavlan.  Sometimes 
heroic  qualities  are  attributed  to  a  special  class  of  persons  who 
exist  otherwise  in  their  own  right.  For  instance,  the  Jugoslavs 
regard  with  peculiar  respect  the  haiduks,  who  led  the  revolt  against 
the  Turks  in  1804-13  ;  the  modern  Greeks  have  since  the  sixteenth 
century  celebrated  the  klephts  of  Epirus,  who  may  have  been,  as 
their  name  suggests,  no  better  than  brigands,  but  were  also 
national  champions  against  the  Turks  ;  the  Ossetes  of  the  Caucasus 
have  a  large  number  of  stories,  often  shared  with  the  Chechens  and 
the  Cherkesses,  about  the  Narts,  who  belong  to  an  undated  past 
and  have  no  known  origin  but  are  regarded  as  heroes  beyond 
comparison ; 5  the  Ukrainians  devote  much  attention  to  the  Cos- 
sacks and  their  long  struggles  against  the  Turks,  until  the  name 
of  cossack,  kozak,  has  become  a  synonym  for  a  great  warrior ; 
in  not  dissimilar  conditions  the  Bulgars  attribute  many  virtues 
to  enterprising  brigands  called  yunatsi.  The  conception  of  the 
hero  and  of  heroic  prowess  is  widely  spread,  and  despite  its 
different  settings  and  manifestations  shows  the  same  main  char- 

1  //.  i,  272  ;  v,  304  ;  xii,  383,  449  ;  xx,  287. 

2  Fr.  29,  Diels.  3  Nic.  Eth.  11233  20. 

4  The  word  bogatyr,  derived  from  the  Persian  bahadur,  occurs  in  Russian 
annals  from  the  thirteenth  century,  but  is  used  there  of  Tatar  warriors  ;    cf. 
Chronicle  of  Hypatios  on  the  warriors  of  Baty  Khan  in  1240  and  1243.    Since  the 
fifteenth  century  it  has  replaced  old  Russian  words  for  "  warrior  "  such  as 
udalets,  khrabr,  muzh. 

5  For  theories  on  the  origins  of  the  Narts  cf.  G.  Dum&il,  Legendes  sur  les 
Nartes  (Paris,  1930),  pp.  1-12. 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

acteristics,  which  agree  with  what  the  Greeks  say  of  their  heroes. 
An  age  which  believes  in  the  pursuit  of  honour  will  naturally  wish 
jtp  express  its  admiration  in  a  poetry  of  action  and  adventure,  of 
bold  endeavours  and  noble  examples.  Heroic  poetry  still  exists 
in  many  parts  of  the  world  and  has  existed  in  many  others, 
because  it  answers  a  real  need  of  the  human  spirit. 

This  poetry  may  be  divided  into  two  classes,  ancient  and 
modern.  To  the  first  belong  those  poems  which  have  by  some 
whim  of  chance  survived  from  the  past.  Such  are  the  Greek 
Iliad  and  Odyssey,  the  Asiatic  Gilgamish,  preserved  fragmentarily 
in  Old  Babylonian,  Hittite,  Assyrian,  and  New  Babylonian,  the 
remains  of  the  Canaanite  (Ugaritic)  Aqhat  and  Keret,  the  Old 
German  Hildebrand,  the  Anglo-Saxon  Beowulf,  Maldon,  Brunan- 
burh  and  fragments  of  Finnsburh  and  Waldhere,  the  Norse  poems 
of  the  Elder  Edda  and  other  pieces,  some  French  epics  of  which 
the  most  remarkable  is  the  Song  of  Roland,  and  the  Spanish  Poema 
del  Cid  and  fragments  of  other  poems.  The  last  hundred  and 
fifty  years  have  added  a  large  second  class  of  modern  heroic 
poems,  taken  down  from  living  bards.  In  Europe,  the  art  is  still 
flourishing,  or  was  till  recently,  in  Russia,  especially  in  remote 
regions  like  Lake  Onega  and  the  White  Sea ;  in  Jugoslavia,  both 
among  Christians  and  Mohammedans ;  in  Bulgaria ;  in  the 
Ukraine  ;  in  Greece  ;  in  Esthonia  ;  in  Albania.  In  Asia,  it  is  to 
be  found  in  the  Caucasus  among  the  Armenians  and  the  Ossetes ; 
in  the  Caspian  basin  among  the  Kalmucks ;  among  some  Turkic 
peoples,  notably  the  Uzbeks  of  what  was  once  Bactria,  and  the 
Kara- Kirghiz  of  the  Tien- Shan  mountains ;  among  the  Yakuts 
of  the  river  Lena  in  northern  Siberia;  the  Achins  of  western 
Sumatra  ;  the  Ainus  of  the  northern  Japanese  island  of  Hokkaido, 
and  some  tribes  of  the  Arabian  peninsula.  In  Africa  it  seems 
to  be  much  less  common,  but  there  are  traces  of  it  in  the  Sudan.1 
This  list  is  by  no  means  complete  and  could  easily  be  increased. 
There  are,  no  doubt,  also  regions  in  which  the  art  exists  but  has 
not  been  recorded  by  European  scholars.  There  are  equally  other 
regions  where  it  once  existed  but  has  passed  out  of  currency  before 
the  impact  of  new  ideas  and  ways  of  life.  None  the  less,  the 
present  evidence  shows  that  it  is  widely  spread  and  that,  wherever 
it  occurs,  it  follows  certain  easily  observed  rules.  It  is  therefore  a 
fit  subject  for  study,  though  any  such  study  must  take  as  much 
notice  of  variations  as  of  underlying  principles. 

1  Petrovic,  pp.  190-93,  describes  an  epic  poem  which  celebrates  a  battle 
between  the  fetishists  and  the  Moslems  among  the  Bambara  of  the  French 
Sudan.  Cf.  also  Mungo  Park,  Travels  (edn.  1860),  p.  311. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

This  poetry  is  inspired  by  the  belief  that  the  honour  which 
men  pay  to  some  of  their  fellows  is  owed  to  a  real  superiority  in 
natural  endowments.  But  of  course  it  is  not  enough  for  a  man  to 
possess  superior  qualities ;  he  must  realise  them  in  action.  In 
the  ordeals  of  the  heroic  life  his  full  worth  is  tested  and  revealed. 
It  is  not  even  necessary  that  he  should  be  rewarded  by  success  : 
the  hero  who  dies  in  battle  after  doing  his  utmost  is  in  some  ways 
more  admirable  than  he  who  lives.  In  either  case  he  is  honoured 
because  he  has  made  a  final  effort  in  courage  and  endurance,  and 
no  more  can  be  asked  of  him.  He  gives  dignity  to  the  human  race 
by  showing  of  what  feats  it  is  capable  ;  he  extends  the  bounds  of 
experience  for  others  and  enhances  their  appreciation  of  life  by 
the  example  of  his  abundant  vitality.  However  much  ordinary 
men  feel  themselves  to  fall  short  of  such  an  ideal,  they  none  the 
less  respect  it  because  it  opens  up  possibilities  of  adventure  and 
excitement  and  glory  which  appeal  even  to  the  most  modest  and 
most  humble.  The  admiration  for  great  doings  lies  deep  in  the 
human  heart,  and  comforts  and  cheers  even  when  it  does  not  stir 
to  emulation.  Heroes  are  the  champions  of  man's  ambition  to 
pass  beyond  the  oppressive  limits  of  human  frailty  to  a  fuller  and 
more  vivid  life,  to  win  as  far  as  possible  a  self-sufficient  manhood, 
which  refuses  to  admit  that  anything  is  too  difficult  for  it,  and  is 
content  even  in  failure,  provided  that  it  has  made  every  effort 
of  which  it  is  capable.  Since  the  ideal  of  action  appeals  to  a  vast 
number  of  men  and  opens  new  chapters  of  enthralling  experience, 
it  becomes  matter  for  poetry  of  a  special  kind. 

Heroic  poetry  is  essentially  narrative  and  is  nearly  always 
remarkable  for  its  objective  character.  It  creates  its  own  world 
of  the  imagination  in  which  men  act  on  easily  understood 
principles,  and,  though  it  celebrates  great  doings  because  of  their 
greatness,  it  does  so  not  overtly  by  praise  but  indirectly  by  making 
them  speak  for  themselves  and  appeal  to  us  in  their  own  right. 
It  wins  interest  and  admiration  for  its  heroes  by  showing  what 
they  are  and  what  they  do.  This  degree  of  independence  and 
objectivity  is  due  to  the  pleasure  which  most  men  take  in  a  well- 
told  tale  and  their  dislike  of  having  it  spoiled  by  moralising  or 
instruction.  Indeed  heroic  poetry  is  far  from  unique  in  this 
respect.  It  has  much  in  common  with  other  kinds  of  narrative, 
whether  in  prose  or  in  verse,  whose  main  purpose  is  to  tell  a  story 
in  an  agreeable  and  absorbing  way.  What  differentiates  heroic 
poetry  is  largely  its  outlook.  It  works  in  conditions  determined 
by  special  conceptions  of  manhood  and  honour.  It  cannot  exist 
unless  men  believe  that  human  beings  are  in  themselves  sufficient 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

objects  of  interest  and  that  their  chief  claim  is  the  pursuit  of 
honour  through  risk.  Since  these  assumptions  are  not  to  be 
found  in  all  countries  at  all  times,  heroic  poetry  does  not  flourish 
everywhere.  It  presupposes  a  view  of  existence  in  which  man 
plays  a  central  part  and  exerts  his  powers  in  a  distinctive  way. 
Thus,  although  it  bears  many  resemblances  to  other  primitive 
narrative  poetry,  it  is  not  the  same  and  may  well  be  a  development 
from  it. 

There  is  a  narrative  poetry  which  tells  for  their  own  sake 
stories  which  are  not  in  any  real  sense  heroic.     With  this,  heroic 
poetry  has  so  much  in  common  that  it  is  impossible  to  make  an 
absolute  distinction  between  the  two  kinds.    The  differences  are 
of  quality  and  degree,  but  they  are  none  the  less  fundamental. 
In  certain  parts  of  the  world  there  is  still  a  flourishing  art  of 
telling  tales  in  verse,   often  at  considerable   length,  about  the 
marvellous  doings  of  men.     What  counts  in  them  is  precisely 
this  element  of  the  marvellous.    It  is  far  more  important  than  any 
heroic  or  even  human  qualities  which  may  have  an  incidental 
part.     This  art  embodies  not  a  heroic  outlook,  which  admires 
man  for  doing  his  utmost  with  his  actual,  human  gifts,  but  a 
more    primitive    outlook    which    admires    any    attempt    to    pass 
beyond  man's  proper  state  by  magical,  non-human  means.     In 
different  ways  this  poetry  exists  among  the  Finns,  the  Altai  and 
Abakan  Tatars,  the  Khalka  Mongols,  the  Tibetans,  and  the  Sea 
Dyaks  of  Borneo.     It  presupposes  a  view  of  the  world  in  which 
man  is  not  the   centre  of  creation  but  caught  between  many 
unseen  powers  and  influences,  and  his  special  interest  lies  in  his 
supposed  ability  to  master  these  and  then  to  do  what  cannot  be 
done  by  the  exercise  of  specifically  human  gifts.    In  such  societies 
the  great  man  is  not  he  who  makes  the  most  of  his  natural  qualities 
but  he  who  is  somehow  able  to  enlist  supernatural  powers  on  his 
behalf.     Of  course  even  the  most  obviously   heroic  heroes  in 
Homer  and  Beowulf,  still  more  in  the  less  sophisticated  poetry  of 
the  Kara-Kirghiz  or  the  Uzbeks  or  the  Ossetes  or  the  Kalmucks 
or  the  Yakuts,  may  at  times  do  something  of  the  kind,  but  it  is 
usually  exceptional,  and  their  ability  to  do  it  is  not  their  first 
claim.     In  more  primitive  societies  this  is  what  really  matters, 
and  it  presupposes  a  different  view  of  manhood  and  of  its  possi- 
bilities and  place  in  the  universe. 

In  the  Finnish  Kalevala,  which  is  actually  not  a  single  poem 
but  a  composition  artfully  made  from  a  number  of  original  lays  by 
the  scholar  Elias  Lonnrot,  the  leading  figures  are  magicians,  and 
the  interest  of  almost  every  episode  turns  on  their  ability  to  master 


HEROIC  POETRY 

a  difficult  situation  by  magic.  The  actual  situation  may  often 
resemble  something  familiar  in  truly  heroic  poems,  but  the 
management  of  it  is  quite  different.  Take,  for  instance,  the  theme 
of  building  a  boat  which  is  to  be  found  both  in  Gilgamish  and  the 
Odyssey.  In  them  it  is  a  matter  of  craft  and  knowledge ;  in  the 
Kalevala  it  is  a  matter  of  knowing  the  right  spells  : 

Then  the  aged  Vainamoinen, 
He  the  great  primaeval  sorcerer, 
Fashioned  then  the  boat  with  wisdom, 
Built  with  magic  songs  the  vessel, 
From  the  fragments  of  an  oak-tree, 
Fragments  of  the  shattered  oak-tree. 
With  a  song  the  keel  he  fashioned, 
With  another,  sides  he  fashioned, 
And  he  sang  again  a  third  time, 
And  the  rudder  he  constructed, 
Bound  the  rib-ends  firm  together, 
And  the  joints  he  fixed  together.1 

What  holds  good  of  boat-building,  holds  equally  good  of  other 
matters  such  as  fighting  or  visiting  the  underworld.  In  the  end 
it  is  not  strength  or  courage  or  even  ordinary  cunning  which  wins 
but  a  knowledge  of  the  right  spells.  In  Kogutei,  a  traditional  poem 
of  the  Altai  Tatars,2  it  is  again  supernatural  powers  which  count. 
The  hero  is  not  the  man  Kogutei  but  a  beaver  whose  life  he  spares 
and  whom  he  takes  home.  The  beaver  duly  marries  a  huirian 
bride  and  behaves  very  like  a  man,  but  though  he  is  a  great 
hunter  and  performs  many  feats  of  valour,  he  is  not  a  human 
being  and  does  not  reflect  a  heroic  outlook.  His  final  triumphs 
come  through  magic,  and  it  is  clear  that  he  has  much  of  the 
shaman  in  him  when  he  escapes  death  at  the  hands  of  his  brothers- 
in-law,  lays  a  curse  on  their  whole  family,  returns  to  Kogutei,  and 
enriches  him  by  his  magical  arts. 

Although  in  this  poetry  great  events  are  usually  directed  by 
magic,  it  does  not  mean  that  the  men  who  take  part  in  them  lack 
great  qualities.  They  may  often  have  strength  and  courage  and 
power  to  command,  but  none  the  less  they  must  practise  magic  if 
they  wish  to  succeed.  The  Sea  Dyaks  of  Borneo,  for  instance, 
have  long  narrative  poems  about  reckless  exploits.  They  have 
their  full  share  of  fighting  and  of  deeds  of  gallant  daring,  but 
sooner  or  later  their  warriors  resort  to  magic.  In  Klieng's  War 

1  Kalevala,  xvi,   101-12.     On  the  Kalevala  in  general  cf.  D.  Comparetti, 
The  Traditional  Poetry  of  the  Finns  (Eng.  Trans.),  London,   1898,  and  C.  J. 
Billson,  Popular  Poetry  of  the  Finns,  London,  1900. 

2  Kogutei:     Altaiski   Epos,    Moscow,    1935;     cf.    Chadwick,    Growth,    iii, 
pp.  99-102. 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

Raid  to  the  Skies  human  invaders  ascend  to  the  stars  by  throwing 
up  balls  of  blue  and  red  thread,  an  action  which  may  have  some 
connection  with  the  cult  of  the  rainbow  and  is  certainly  magical.1 
The  main  episode  of  the  poem  presupposes  powers  more  than 
human  and  makes  the  shamanistic  assumption  that  certain  men 
can  scale  the  sky.  So,  too,  in  the  fine  poems  of  the  Abakan  Tatars, 
or  Chakass,2  an  undeniably  heroic  element  expresses  itself  in 
stirring  scenes  of  adventure,  but  even  so  the  issue  lies  not  with 
human  qualities  but  with  forces  outside  human  control,  with 
strange  beings  who  come  from  nowhere  and  decide  the  destinies  of 
men.  In  such  a  world  the  warriors  themselves  often  use  magic 
and  think  little  of  flying  along  the  sky  on  their  horses  or  jumping 
over  a  wide  sea.  Indeed  they  are  so  close  to  the  world  of  beasts 
and  birds  and  fishes  that  they  seem  not  to  be  finally  differentiated 
from  them.  They  are  almost  natural  forces  in  a  universe  governed 
by  inexplicable  laws  to  which  magic  is  the  only  key.  If  they 
restrict  their  efforts  to  specifically  human  powers,  they  are  liable 
to  fail,  and  even  the  stoutest  champion  may  be  foiled  by  some 
incalculable  intervention  from  the  unknown.  In  such  a  society 
the  hero  has  not  reached  his  true  stature  because  his  human 
capacities  are  not  fully  realised,  and  though  he  may  be  concerned 
with  honour,  it  is  not  his  first  or  only  concern.  His  life  is  spent 
in  meeting  unforeseen  contingencies  which  make  him  a  plaything 
of  the  supernatural. 

The  difference  between  shamanistic  poetry -and  heroic  poetry 
proper  may  be  illustrated  by  a  comparison  between  two  examples, 
in  each  of  which  both  elements  exist  but  in  degrees  so  different 
that  we  can  confidently  call  one  shamanistic  and  the  other  heroic. 
The  Tibetan  poems  about  King  Kesar  of  Ling  are  concerned 
with  a  great  warrior,  who  may  have  a  historical  origin,  and  is 
regarded  as  all  that  a  hero  should  be.3  He  has  indeed  many 
heroic  qualities.  His  portentous  birth  and  boyhood,  his  destruc- 
tion of  his  enemies,  his  strength  and  wealth  and  intelligence,  his 
wars  and  victories  make  him  look  like  a  hero,  but  in  fact  his  success 
comes  almost  entirely  by  magic.  He  is  able  not  only  to  assume 
whatever  shape  he  likes,  whether  human  or  animal,  but  to  create 
phantoms  which  look  like  living  men  and  frighten  his  foes  into 

1  Chadwick,  Growth,  Hi,  pp.  480-83. 

2  N.  Cohn,  Gold  Khan,  London,  1946. 

3  G.  N.  Roerich,  "The  Epic  of  King  Kesar  of  Ling"  in  Journal  of  Royal 
Society  of  Bengal,  viii,  1942.     I  owe  this  reference  to  Mr.  W.  A.  C.  H.  Dobson. 
The  poems  survive  in  various  dialects  of  Tibetan,  and  also  in  Mongolian  and 
Burushaski.     A  full  paraphrase  of  the  story  is  given  by  A.  David-Neel,  The 
Superhuman  Life  of  Gesar  of  Ling,  London,  1932. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

surrender.  In  every  crisis  he  uses  magic,  and  his  real  place  is  not 
with  human  beings,  since  he  is  the  incarnation  of  a  god  and  helped 
by  four  divine  spirits  who  succour  him  in  every  need.  On  the 
other  hand  the  Yakut  poems  have  on  the  surface  many  magical 
elements.  Sometimes  the  heroes  themselves  are  actually  shamans  ; 
they  are  usually  able  to  perform  magical  acts.  But  when  it  comes 
to  war,  they  rely  not  on  magic  but  on  strength  of  arm,  and  that 
makes  all  the  difference.  In  the  last  resort  the  Yakut  poems  are 
heroic  and  the  Tibetan  are  shamanistic  because  they  presuppose 
different  views  of  human  worth  and  capacity.  In  the  poems 
about  Kesar  what  counts  is  his  supernatural  power,  but  in  the 
Yakut  poems  the  main  interest  is  in  physical  and  mental  capacity, 
which  may  indeed  be  unusual  but  is  still  recognisably  human. 
The  difference  between  shamanistic  and  heroic  poetry  is  largely 
one  of  emphasis,  but  no  poem  can  be  regarded  as  truly  heroic 
unless  the  major  successes  of  the  hero  are  achieved  by  more  or  less 
human  means. 

It  is  of  course  possible  that  sometimes  shamanistic  elements 
are  later  intrusions  into  a  truly  heroic  art.  Indeed  it  is  even 
possible  that  this  is  the  case  with  the  poems  about  King  Kesar  of 
Ling.  Since  the  poems  seem  to  be  derived  from  a  time  before  the 
establishment  of  Buddhism  in  Tibet,  it  is  quite  likely  that  the 
shamanistic  elements  in  them  are  themselves  Buddhistic,  and  that 
these  have  obscured  and  altered  an  earlier,  more  genuinely  heroic 
poetry.  But  this  does  not  affect  the  main  point  that  shamanistic 
poetry  is  more  primitive  than  heroic  and  tends  to  precede  it 
historically.  Heroic  poetry  seems  to  be  a  development  of  narrative 
from  a  magical  to  a  more  anthropocentric  outlook.  Such  a  change 
may  well  be  gradual,  since  it  must  take  time  to  realise  the  implica- 
tions of  the  new  outlook  and  to  shape  stories  to  suit  it.  The 
process  may  have  been  assisted  by  one  or  two  other  kinds  of 
poetry  closely  related  to  a  heroic  point  of  view,  notably  the 
panegyrics  and  laments  which  are  popular  in  many  countries. 
The  one  celebrates  a  great  man's  doings  to  his  face,  while  the 
other  praises  him  in  lamenting  his  death.  The  great  doings  and 
qualities  so  commemorated  are  often  of  the  kind  which  heroic 
poets  record  in  objective  narrative.  Moreover,  panegyrics  and 
laments  are  often  in  the  same  style  and  metres  as  strictly  heroic 
poems,  and  indeed  in  Russian  and  Tatar  literature  the  two  classes 
have  an  almost  identical  manner  and  vocabulary.  Panegyrics  and 
laments  resemble  heroic  poetry  in  their  taste  for  the  nobler 
human  qualities.  The  great  man  wins  a  victory  in  battle  or  the 
games  ;  he  is  a  famous  huntsman,  a  father  of  his  people,  a  generous 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

host,  a  loyal  friend,  notable  alike  for  courage  and  wisdom.  In  such 
poems  honour  is  assumed  to  be  the  right  end  of  life,  and  a  man 
wins  it  through  great  achievements.  Both  panegyric  and  lament 
celebrate  an  individual's  fame  at  some  special  crisis,  and  in  so 
doing  endorse  a  heroic  outlook. 

Panegyric  honours  the  great  man  in  his  presence  for  something 
that  he  Has  done  and  is  usually  composed  soon  after  the  event. 
For  instance,  one  of  the  oldest  relics  of  Hebrew  poetry,  the  Song 
of  Deborah,  composed  about  1200  B.C.,  breathes  a  heroic  spirit  in 
its  joy  over  the  rout  of  a  formidable  enemy.  Though  it  tells  its 
story  with  brilliant  realism  and  a  fine  sense  of  adventure,  it 
remains  a  panegyric.  If  Deborah  and  Barak  really  sang  it,  and  it 
is  quite  possible  that  they  did,  their  proclaimed  purpose  was  to 
praise  Jael,  the  slayer  of  Sisera  : 

Blessed  above  women  shall  Jael  the  wife  of  Hebcr  the  Kenite  be, 
Blessed  shall  she  be  above  all  women  in  the  tent.1 

Panegyrics  of  this  kind  are  widely  spread  over  the  world.  They 
exist  not  merely  among  peoples  who  have  a  heroic  poetry,  like  the 
Greeks,  the  Germanic  and  Slavonic  peoples,  the  Asiatic  Tatars,  and 
some  peoples  of  the  Caucasus,  but  among  others  who  seem  never 
to  have  had  such  a  poetry,  like  the  Polynesians,  the  Zulus,  the 
Abyssinians,  the  Tuareg,  and  the  Galla.  Panegyric  does  not  often 
attain  any  length  and  certainly  does  not  compare  in  scale  with 
long  heroic  poems.  It  represents  an  outlook  which  is  close  to 
the  heroic,  but  it  lacks  the  independence  and  objectivity  of  a 
heroic  poem. 

Lament  is  closely  allied  to  panegyric  in  that  it  dwells  on  a 
great  man's  achievements,  though  it  does  so  with  sorrow  and 
regret  after  his  death.  The  heroic  temper  is  often  vivid  in  it,  as 
in  another  early  Hebrew  poem,  David's  lament  for  Saul  and 
Jonathan  (c.  1010  B.C.),  with  its  praise  of  the  dead  warriors  — 
"  they  were  swifter  than  eagles,  they  were  stronger  than  lions  ". 
But  this  praise  is  inspired  by  contemporary  events  and  delivered 
by  a  poet  in  memory  of  men  whom  he  has  loved  and  lost : 

Ye  daughters  of  Israel,  weep  over  Saul,  who  clothed  you  in  scarlet, 

with  other  delights,  who  put  ornaments  of  gold  upon  your  apparel. 
How  are  the  mighty  fallen  in  the  midst  of  the  battle  !    O  Jonathan, 

thou  wast  slain  in  thine  high  places. 
I  am  distressed  for  thee,  my  brother  Jonathan  :  very  pleasant  hast 

thou  been  unto  me :  thy  love  was  wonderful,  passing  the  love  of 

women. 
How  are  the  mighty  fallen,  and  the  weapons  of  war  perished.2 

1  Judges  v,  24.  2  II  Samuel  i,  24-7. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

The  sense  of  personal  loss,  such  as  David  reveals,  is  essential  to 
lament,  and,  though  it  may  easily  become  a  convention,  it  remains 
none  the  less  necessary.  Lament  is  born  from  grief  for  the  dead, 
and  though  praise  is  naturally  combined  with  it,  grief  has  the  chief 
place.  The  authentic  note  may  be  seen  in  the  song  which  Kiluken 
Bahadur  sang  over  the  body  of  Genghiz  Khan  when  it  was  being 
carried  on  a  cart  to  burial : 

Once  thou  didst  swoop  like  a  falcon  !    A  rumbling  waggon  now 

trundles  thee  off ! 
O  my  king  ! 
Hast  thou  then  in  truth  forsaken  thy  wife  and  thy  children  and 

the  assembly  of  thy  people  ? 
O  my  king  ! 

Circling  in  pride  like  an  eagle  once  thou  didst  lead  us, 
O  my  king  ! 

But  now  thou  has  stumbled  and  fallen,  like  an  unbroken  colt, 
O  my  king  !  l 

The  lament  reflects  the  spirit  of  a  heroic  society  not  with  dramatic 
objectivity  but  with  personal  intimacy.  It  shows  what  men  feel 
when  their  lives  are  touched  by  loss.  The  poet  is  too  close  to  the 
actual  event  to  present  it  with  the  artistic  detachment  of  heroic 
narrative. 

None  the  less  the  resemblances  between  panegyric  or  lament 
and  heroic  poetry  are  so  close  that  there  must  be  a  relation  between 
them.  Historical  priority  probably  belongs  to  panegyric  and 
lament,  not  merely  because  they  are  simpler  and  less  objective, 
but  because  they  exist  in  some  societies  where  heroic  poetry  is 
lacking.  The  reasons  for  this  lack  are  several.  First,  it  may  be 
simply  an  inability  to  rise  beyond  a  single  occasion  to  the  con- 
ception of  a  detached  art.  This  may  be  the  case  with  some 
African  peoples,  who  delight  to  honour  victorious  achievements 
but  address  their  poems  to  single  real  persons  and  compose 
especially  for  them.  How  close  this  spirit  is  to  a  heroic  outlook 
can  be  seen  from  a  small  song  of  praise  composed  by  court- 
minstrels  for  a  king  of  Uganda  : 

Thy  feet  are  hammers, 
Son  of  the  forest. 
Great  is  the  fear  of  thee  ; 
Great  is  thy  wrath  : 
Great  is  thy  peace  : 
Great  is  thy  power.2 

1  Yule-Cordier,  Travels  of  Marco  Polo  (London,  1903),  i,  p.  351. 
2  Chadwick,  Growth,  iii,  p.  579. 

10 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

The  conception  of  a  great  man  presented  in  this  poem  may  be 
matched  by  that  of  an  Abyssinian  lament  for  a  dead  chieftain  of 
the  Amhara  country  : 

Alas  !   Saba  Gadis,  the  friend  of  all, 

Has  fallen  at  Daga  Shaha  by  the  hand  of  Oubeshat ! 

Alas  !   Saba  Gadis,  the  pillar  of  the  poor, 

Has  fallen  at  Daga  Shaha,  weltering  in  his  blood  ! 

The  people  of  this  country,  will  they  find  it  a  good  thing 

To  eat  ears  of  corn  which  have  grown  in  his  blood  ?  l 

Though  these  poems,  and  many  others  like  them,  show  a  real 
admiration  for  active  and  generous  manhood,  they  come  from 
peoples  who  have  no  heroic  poetry  and  have  never  advanced 
beyond  panegyric  and  lament.  The  intellectual  effort  required 
for  such  an  advance  seems  to  have  been  beyond  their  powers. 

The  limitations  of  this  outlook  may  be  specially  illustrated 
from  the  poetry  of  the  Zulus.  In  the  first  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century  they  were  organised  as  an  extremely  formidable  power  by 
their  king  Chaka,  who,  by  a  combination  of  good  tactics  and  a 
more  than  ruthless  discipline,  made  himself  a  great  conqueror  and 
won  the  fear  and  respect  alike  of  his  subjects  and  his  neighbours. 
He,  we  might  think,  would  have  been  a  suitable  subject  for  heroic 
song,  but  he  seems  to  have  missed  this  destiny,  since  all  we 
possess  to  his  memory  are  panegyrics.  In  one  we  see  how  his 
soldiers  saw  him  : 

Thou  hast  finished,  finished  the  nations, 

Where  wilt  thou  go  forth  to  battle  now  ? 

Hey  !   where  wilt  thou  go  forth  to  battle  now  ? 

Thou  hast  conquered  kings, 

Where  wilt  thou  go  forth  to  battle  now  ? 

Thou  hast  finished,  finished  the  nations, 

Where  art  thou  going  to  battle  now  ? 

Hurrah  !   Hurrah  !   Hurrah  ! 

Where  art  thou  going  to  battle  now  ?  2 

This  is  simple  and  primitive,  the  expression  of  an  immediate, 
violent  excitement.  A  few  years  later  Chaka's  successor,  Dingan, 
who  was  in  no  sense  his  peer  in  ability  or  intelligence,  was  cele- 
brated on  a  larger  scale  with  a  greater  sense  of  heroic  worth. 
The  second  poem  praises  the  king's  power  and  enterprise,  and  does 
not  shrink  from  making  honourable  mention  of  his  murder  of 
his  elder  brother,  Chaka,  and  his  other  brother,  Umhlangani. 
Through  the  161  lines  of  his  song  the  poet  keeps  up  a  real  sense 

1  Chadwick,  Growth,  iii,  p.  517. 
2  J.  Shooter,  The  Kafirs  of  Natal  (London,  1857),  p.  268. 

II 


HEROIC  POETRY 

of  the  prodigious  prowess  and  irresistible  strength  of  his  master 
and  praises  Dingan  as  the  most  authentic  type  of  hero.  He  is  of 
course  a  great  conqueror  : 

Thou  art  a  king  who  crushest  the  heads  of  the  other  kings. 
Thou  passest  over  mountains  inaccessible  to  thy  predecessors. 
Thou  findest  a  defile  from  which  there  is  no  way  out. 
There  thou  makest  roads,  yes,  roads. 

Thou  takest  away  the  herds  from  the  banks  of  the  Tugela, 
And  the  herds  from  the  Babanankos,  a  people  skilled  in  the 

forging  of  iron. 
Thou  art  indeed  a  vigorous  adventurer. 

So  much  is  to  be  expected,  but  the  poet  then  praises  Dingan  for 
other  qualities,  which  are  not  usually  regarded  as  heroic,  though  a 
strict  logic  might  claim  that  they  are  —  notably  for  being  un- 
approachable and  ruthless  : 

Thou  makest  all  the  world  to  keep  silence, 

Thou  hast  silenced  even  the  troops  ; 

Thy  troops  always  obey  thee  : 

Thou  sayest,  and  they  go  ; 

Thou  sayest,  and  they  go  again. 

All  honour  a  king  whom  none  can  approach. 

Though  Dingan  has  murdered  Chaka,  he  is  compared  and  indeed 
identified  with  him  as  a  great  conqueror : 

Thou  art  Chaka  ;  thou  causest  all  people  to  tremble. 

Thou  thunderest  like  the  musket. 

At  the  fearful  noise  which  thou  makest 

The  dwellers  in  the  towns  flee  away. 

Thou  are  the  great  shade  of  the  Zulu, 

And  thence  thou  swellest  and  reachest  to  all  countries.1 

This  undeniably  expresses  a  heroic  ideal  of  an  advanced  kind, 
but  the  poet's  art  is  still  confined  to  panegyric.  His  outlook  is 
limited  to  the  actual  present,  and  he  does  not  conceive  of  great 
events  in  an  objective  setting.  Indeed  this  restriction  of  outlook 
may  be  the  reason  why  African  tribes  have  in  general  no  heroic 
poetry.  The  present  so  absorbs  and  occupies  them  that  they  feel 
no  need  to  traffic  with  the  past  and  the  imaginary.  Just  as  with 
Dingan  the  poet  speaks  only  of  the  immediate  past,  and  that  only 
to  show  his  hero  in  his  present  glory,  so  other  African  poets  seem 
unwilling  or  unable  to  construct  songs  of  heroic  action  which  are 
enjoyable  for  their  own  sake  and  not  some  kind  of  summons  to 
action  or  an  instrument  of  personal  praise. 

A  second  reason  for  the  failure  to  develop  a  heroic  poetry  may 

1  J.  Shooter,  The  Kafirs  of  Natal  (London,  1857),  p.  310  ff. 
12 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

be  almost  the  opposite  of  what  seems  to  operate  among  the 
African  peoples.  The  origins  of  Chinese  poetry  are  lost  in  a 
dateless  past,  and  a  great  mass  of  early  poems  has  certainly  perished. 
But  it  seems  on  the  whole  improbable  that  the  Chinese  ever  had 
a  heroic  poetry.  That  they  had  something  like  a  pre-heroic 
poetry  may  be  assumed  from  the  traces  of  rhymed  narrative  like 
that  in  the  Shan-hai-ching  of  Yii's  fight  with  a  nine- headed 
dragon.1  It  is  also  clear  that  they  were  capable  of  producing  a 
poetry  of  vigorous  action,  like  the  piece  preserved  on  stone  drums 
in  the  Confucian  temple  at  Peking  and  written  about  the  eighth 
century  B.C.  : 

Our  chariots  are  strong, 

Our  horses  well-matched, 

Our  chariots  are  lovely, 

Our  horses  are  sturdy  ; 

Our  lord  goes  a-hunting,  goes  a-sporting. 

The  does  and  deer  so  fleet 

Our  lord  seeks. 

Our  horn  bows  are  springy  ; 

The  how  springs  we  hold. 

We  drive  the  big  beasts. 

They  come  with  thud  of  hoofs,  come  in  great  herds. 

Now  we  drive,  now  we  stop. 

The  does  and  deer  tread  warily  .   .  . 

We  drive  the  tall  ones  ; 

They  come  charging  headlong. 

We  have  shot  the  strongest  of  all,  have  shot  the  tallest.2 

This  is  a  hunting-song,  but  in  its  quiet  way  it  recalls  heroic 
narrative.  It  glories  in  a  successful  hunt,  in  the  skill  and  high 
spirits  of  the  hunters ;  it  tells  its  story  with  realism  and  an  apt 
choice  of  facts ;  it  reflects  the  pride  of  men  who  set  themselves  a 
difficult  task  and  carry  it  out.  But  it  is  not  heroic  poetry,  since 
it  is  not  an  objective  narrative  but  a  personal  record,  and  though 
there  is  no  explicit  praise  in  it,  it  is  really  panegyric  spoken  by 
the  hunters  about  themselves. 

A  similar  heroic  spirit  can  be  seen  in  other  Chinese  poems 
which  are  unquestionably  laments.  Ch'u-Yuan's  (332-295  B.C.) 
Battle  echoes  in  a  short  space  the  delight  of  battle  and  the  glory 
which  death  in  it  confers,  but  though  it  gives  a  vivid  picture  of 
fighting,  it  is  clearly  a  lament,  as  the  conclusion  shows  : 

1  Ch.  8  ;   another  version  in  ch.  17.     I  owe  this  reference  to  Professor  Otto 
Maenchen. 

2  Arthur  Waley,  The  Booh  of  Songs  (London,  1937),  p.  290.    The  poet  Han 
Yu  (A.D.  768-824)  wrote  a  poem  about  the  stone-drums  ;  cf.  R.  C.  Trevelyan, 
From  the  Chinese  (Oxford,  1945),  p.  30  if. 

13 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Steadfast  to  the  end,  they  could  not  be  daunted. 

Their  bodies  were  stricken,  but  their  souls  have  taken  Immortality  — 

Captains  among  the  ghosts,  heroes  among  the  dead.1 

A  like  spirit  informs  the  anonymous  Fighting  South  of  the  Castle, 
written  about  124  B.C.  It  too  has  a  real  power  of  exciting  nar- 
rative : 

The  waters  flowed  deep, 

And  the  rushes  in  the  pool  were  dark. 

The  riders  fought  and  were  slain  : 

Their  horses  wander  neighing. 

But  it  too,  at  the  end,  shows  that  it  is  a  personal  tribute  to  the 
dead  and  not  an  objective  narrative  of  their  doings  : 

I  think  of  you,  faithful  soldiers  ; 
Your  service  shall  not  be  forgotten. 
For  in  the  morning  you  went  out  to  battle 
And  at  night  you  did  not  return.2 

Though  the  Chinese  possessed  the  seeds  of  a  heroic  poetry,  they 
did  not  allow  them  to  grow.  The  explanation  perhaps  is  that  the 
great  intellectual  forces  which  set  so  lasting  an  impress  on  Chinese 
civilisation  were  hostile  to  the  heroic  spirit  with  its  unfettered 
individualism  and  self-assertion. 

Perhaps  something  of  the  same  kind  happened  in  Israel.  The 
Hebrews,  like  the  Chinese,  had  panegyrics,  such  as  the  Song  of 
Deborah  3  and  the  song  which  the  women  sang  when  Saul  and 
David  returned  from  battle  with  the  Philistines,4  and  laments, 
such  as  David's  for  Saul  and  Jonathan  5  and  for  Abner.6  But 
there  is  no  evidence  that  they  had  a  truly  heroic  poetry.  Its  place 
was  largely  taken  by  prose  narrative,  like  that  which  tells  of  Saul 
and  David  or  of  Samson's  dealings  with  the  Philistines.  These 
prose  stories  have  a  good  deal  in  common  with  heroic  poetry. 
They  are  tales  of  adventure  told  for  entertainment ;  they  abound  in 
speeches  and  descriptive  details ;  they  are  written  from  a  courtly, 
and  not  from  a  priestly,  point  of  view  and  differ  considerably 
from  such  stories  as  those  of  Elijah  and  Elisha.  On  the  other 
hand  they  are  more  historical  than  heroic.  They  are  episodic, 
and  their  chief  characters  are  more  life-like  than  ideal.  Indeed, 
apart  from  Samson,  they  are  hardly  heroes  in  any  full  sense. 
Saul  has  his  kingly  qualities  and  his  tragic  doom,  and  David  his 
vivid  and  brilliant  youth,  but  fidelity  to  historical  fact  lowers  the 
heroic  tone  and  produces  something  that  is  more  a  chronicle  than 

1  Arthur  Waley,  ijo  Chinese  Poems  (London,  1918),  p.  23. 

2  Ibid.  p.  33.  3  Judges  v.  4  I  Samuel  xviii,  7,  and  xxi,  11. 
5  II  Samuel  i,  19-27.  6  Ibid,  iii,  33  ff. 

H 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

a  saga.  In  Israel  lament  and  panegyric  failed  to  mature  not 
only  into  heroic  poetry  but  into  heroic  saga.  The  Song  of  Deborah 
suggests  that  the  Hebrews  might  have  developed  a  heroic  poetry 
comparable  to  that  of  their  Semitic  kinsmen  in  Gilgamtsh,  but 
something  held  them  back.  Even  though  they  honoured  great 
figures  in  their  judges  and  kings,  they  did  not  make  the  most  of 
their  opportunities,  and  after  that  the  growth  of  priestly  rule 
would  certainly  have  discouraged  an  art  which  gave  too  great  an 
emphasis  to  the  individual  hero.1 

In  some  countries  a  heroic  poetry  may  come  into  existence 
but  fail  to  be  maintained  in  its  full  character,  and  this  failure 
may  in  some  cases  be  due  to  artistic  considerations.  Men  may 
happen  to  prefer  prose  to  poetry,  and  then  saga  becomes  the 
popular  art  for  tales  of  action.  Saga  is  quite  consistent  with  a 
purely  heroic  outlook  and  is  indeed  heroic  prose.  Such  seems 
to  have  been  the  case  with  the  Irish.  They  have  an  abundant 
prose  which  tells  of  themes  like  those  of  heroic  poetry,  such  as 
violent  deaths,  cattle-raids,  abductions,  battles,  feasts,  and 
revenges.  It  has  its  great  heroes  like  Cuchulainn  and  Conchobor, 
abounds  in  eloquent  speeches,  describes  in  detail  the  warriors' 
weapons,  clothes,  and  personal  appearance.  Moreover  these 
prose-tales  often  contain  pieces  of  verse,  usually  in  the  form  of 
speeches  but  sometimes  narrative.  In  The  Courtship  of  Fcrb, 
which  tells  how  Conchobor  attacks  a  wedding-party  and  causes  a 
great  slaughter,  the  verse  is  narrative  and  older  than  the  prose  in 
which  it  is  embedded.2  Moreover,  this  verse  is  sometimes  in  the 
form  called  "  rhetorics  ",  which  works  with  single  lines  and  is 
probably  older  than  the  more  usual  stanzas.  In  Ireland  there 
seems  once  to  have  been  a  heroic  poetry  which  for  some  reason 
failed  to  hold  the  field  and  survives  fragmentarily  in  prose  sagas. 
Something  of  the  same  kind  may  have  happened  among  the 
Turcomans,  who  have  a  large  cycle  of  prose  tales  about  the  hero 
Kurroglou.3  They  begin  with  his  birth  and  end  with  his  death, 
and  have  an  undeniably  heroic  spirit  in  their  accounts  of  plunder- 
ing attacks  on  caravans,  the  hero's  visits  in  disguise  to  the  camps 
of  his  enemies,  the  single  combats  in  which  he  is  not  always 
victorious,  his  unscrupulous  revenges.  The  hero  himself  often 

1  Something  of  the  same  kind  seems  to  have  happened  in  Egypt,  though 
there  the  deterrent  force  was  the  power  of  the  Pharaohs,  who  saw  themselves 
as  the  companions  of  the  gods  ;  cf.  the  victory-song  of  Thothmes  the  Great 
quoted  by  H.  R.  Hall,  Ancient  History  of  the  Near  Fast,  4th  cdn.  (London, 
1919),  p.  250  ff. 

z  A.  H.  Leahy,  The  Courtship  of  Ferb,  London,  1902,  gives  both  prose  and 
poetry  in  English  translation. 

3  A.  Chodzo,  Specimens  of  the  Popular  Poetry  of  Persia,  London,  1842. 

15 


HEROIC  POETRY 

breaks  into  song  for  which  verse  is  used,  but  the  main  narrative 
is  in  prose.  This  art  has  much  in  common  with  the  heroic  poetry 
of  the  Kara-Kirghiz,  but  though  the  authors  know  how  to  compose 
poetry,  they  restrict  it  and  never,  it  seems,  use  it  for  actual  narrative. 
Here,  as  in  Ireland,  it  looks  as  if  for  some  technical  or  artistic 
reason  prose  were  preferred  to  verse.  The  heroic  spirit  remains, 
but  perhaps  because  oral  improvisation  never  reached  so  high  a 
level  among  the  Turcomans  as  among  the  Kara- Kirghiz,  prose 
became  the  usual  medium  for  a  story.  In  restricting  verse  to 
songs  and  speeches  made  by  the  heroes  the  poets  show  a  nicer 
sense  of  style  than  their  Irish  counterparts.  No  doubt  in  this  they 
use  many  traditional  and  conventional  means,  and,  since  the  scale 
is  not  usually  large,  are  able  to  master  the  problems  raised  by 
improvisation.  The  existence  of  this  anomalous  mixed  art  of 
prose  and  verse  in  two  widely  separated  peoples  suggests  that,  just 
as  in  Ireland  heroic  poetry  once  existed  but  was  gradually  dis- 
placed by  prose,  the  same  thing  may  have  happened  among  the 
Turcomans,  who  are  sufficiently  close  to  the  Kara- Kirghiz  to 
have  the  same  poetical  forms  and  may  once  have  had  a  heroic 
poetry,  but  with  them,  as  with  the  Irish,  this  seems  to  have  been 
largely  superseded  by  prose  and  kept  only  for  dramatic  speeches 
and  the  like  inside  a  prose-narrative. 

Heroic  poetry,  then,  resembles  panegyric  and  lament  in  its 
general  outlook  and  primitive  pre-heroic  poetry  in  much  of  its 
technique.  It  is  dangerous  to  deduce  too  much  from  this,  but, 
if  we  are  right  in  thinking  that  panegyric  and  lament  represent  a 
stage  earlier  than  that  of  objective  heroic  poetry,  it  is  possible 
that  the  latter  comes  into  existence  when  pre-heroic,  shamanistic 
poetry  is  touched  by  the  spirit  of  panegyric  or  lament,  and  the 
result  is  a  new  kind  of  poetry  which  keeps  the  form  of  objective 
narrative  but  uses  it  to  tell  stories  which  embody  a  new  ideal  of 
manhood.  Once  a  society  has  come  to  see  that  man  will  do  more 
by  his  own  efforts  than  by  a  belief  in  magic,  and  to  believe  that 
such  efforts  do  him  credit,  it  alters  its  whole  philosophy.  It  may 
well  come  to  its  first  inklings  of  such  an  outlook  through  its 
delight  in  some  individual  achievement  or  its  grief  at  some  out- 
standing loss,  but  it  cannot  be  long  before  it  wishes  to  see  these 
newly  discovered  qualities  presented  on  a  wider  and  less  im- 
permanent stage,  and  then  it  takes  to  heroic  poetry,  which  tells 
how  great  men  live  and  die  and  fulfil  the  promise  to  which  they 
are  born.  Whether  this  theory  is  true  or  not,  it  remains  likely  that 
heroic  poetry  learns  much  on  the  one  side  from  shamanistic  narra- 
tive with  its  ability  to  tell  a  story  for  its  own  sake,  and  on  the  other 

16 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

side  from  panegyric  and  lament  with  their  affectionate  emphasis 
on  the  gifts  which  win  for  a  man  the  admiration  of  his  fellows. 

Some  indication  of  this  process  and  development  may  be  seen 
in  Russia.  In  the  twelfth  century  Kiev  was  the  centre  of  Russian 
civilisation  and  had  its  own  school  of  poetry.  There,  we  may  be 
certain,  were  produced  by  liny  r  or  heroic  lays  such  as  still  flourish 
in  outlying  parts  of  Russia.  From  Kiev  come  many  of  the  persons 
and  events  which  survive  in  modern  by  liny,  and  there  too  is  the 
landscape  which  is  still  described  by  bards  who  themselves  live 
and  work  in  quite  different  surroundings.  Of  these  early  byliny 
no  example  survives.  What  we  have  is  the  Tale  of  Igor's  Raid, 
which  was  composed  in  nSy.2  It  tells  a  heroic  story  in  a  grand 
manner  and  uses  certain  devices  common  in  the  byliny,  notably 
some  "  fixed  "  epithets  and  a  kind  of  "  negative  comparison  " 
which  serves  as  a  simile.  It  is  conceived  on  a  generous  scale  and 
is  considerably  longer  than  most  panegyrics.  But  it  is  none  the 
less  a  panegyric,  not  a  heroic  poem.  The  raid  which  it  records 
took  place  in  1185,  and  the  poem  tells  the  dramatic  story,  draws 
practical  morals  from  it,  and  pays  a  tribute  to  the  reigning  house 
of  Kiev.  If  it  resembles  a  heroic  poem  in  the  objectivity  of  its 
narrative  and  in  the  speeches  spoken  by  its  characters,  it  betrays 
itself  as  a  panegyric  at  the  close  : 

Glory  to  Igor,  son  of  Svyatoslav, 

To  the  brave  bull,  Vsevolod, 

To  Vladimir,  son  of  Igor  ! 

Long  live  the  princes  and  their  men 

Who  fight  for  Christians  against  infidels  ! 

Glory  to  the  princes  and  their  men  ! 

The  Tale  of  Igor's  Raid  is  on  the  very  edge  of  heroic  poetry,  and 
comes  from  a  society  which  practised  it.  In  it  we  can  see  how 
closely  the  two  types  are  related  and  how  easy  it  must  have  been 
to  move  from  panegyric  to  objective  narrative. 

At  the  same  time  the  Tale  of  Igor's  Raid  knows  of  an  earlier 
and  different  kind  of  poetry,  which  seems  to  have  been  pre-heroic 
and  shamanistic.  At  the  start  the  poet  discusses  whether  he  shall 
begin  his  song  "  in  accordance  with  the  facts  of  the  time  "  and 
not  "  like  the  invention  of  Boyan  ".  He  then  goes  on  to  say  : 

1  The  word  bylina  (plural  byliny}  is  now  commonly  used  for  a  Russian  heroic 
poem.    It  was  first  used  by  Sakharov  in  his  Pesni  russkago  naroda  in  1839,  where 
he  took  it  from  the  phrase  po  bylinam  in  the  Tale  of  Igor's  Raid,  which  means 
"  according  to  the  facts  ". 

2  In  La  Geste  du  Prince  Igor  (New  York,  1948),  p.  146,  M.  Szeftel  dates  the 
composition  of  the  work  between  September  25th  and  the  end  of  October  1187. 
In  the  same  volume,  pp.  235-360,  R.  Jakobson  refutes  the  theory  of  A.  Mazon 
that  the  Tale  is  an  "  Ossianic  "  composition  of  the  eighteenth  century. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

For  the  seer  Boyan,  when  he  wished 

To  make  a  song  for  any  man, 

Would  fly  in  fancy  over  the  trees, 

Race  like  a  grey  wolf  over  the  earth, 

Soar  like  a  blue-grey  eagle  below  the  clouds. 

Recalling,  says  he, 

The  fights  of  old  times 

He  would  loose  ten  falcons 

On  a  flock  of  swans  ; 

Whichever  swan  was  overtaken 

Was  the  first  to  sing  a  song. 

But  indeed  Boyan  did  not  loose 

Ten  falcons  on  a  flock  of  swans,  my  brethren, 

But  laid  his  own  magic  fingers  on  the  living  strings, 

And  they  themselves  would  sound  forth 

The  glory  of  the  princes, 

Of  old  Yaroslav,  of  brave  Matislav, 

Who  slew  Rodelya  before  the  Circassian  hosts, 

Of  Roman,  son  of  Svyatoslav,  the  handsome. 

A  little  later  the  poet  addresses  Boyan  and  wishes  that  he  were 
alive  to  tell  of  Igor's  host : 

O  Boyan,  nightingale  of  olden  times, 
If  only  you  could  sing  of  these  hosts, 
Flitting,  nightingale,  through  the  tree  of  fancy, 
Soaring  in  your  mind  beneath  the  clouds, 
Weaving  songs  of  praise  around  the  present, 
Racing  on  the  Trojan  track, 
Across  the  plains  to  the  mountains. 

The  poet  of  the  Tale  distinguishes  between  the  new  art  of  poetry 
which  he  himself  practises  and  which,  as  we  see,  is  realistic  and 
factual,  and  the  older  art  which  Boyan  practised.  What  he  says 
is  instructive.  When  Boyan  is  called  a  "  seer  "  and  said  to  race 
like  a  wolf  or  fly  like  an  eagle,  we  are  irresistibly  reminded  of  the 
words  used  in  popular  lays  for  primitive  heroes  like  Volga 
Vseslavich  : 

He  could  swim  as  a  pike  in  the  deep  seas, 

Fly  as  a  falcon  under  the  clouds, 

Race  as  a  grey  wolf  over  the  open  plains.1 

Just  as  Volga  is  half  a  magician  or  a  shaman  and  able  to  change 
his  shape,  so  Boyan  surely  claimed  similar  powers  for  himself  and 
must  have  been  a  shamanistic  bard  who  acquired  his  knowledge 
by  magical  means.  The  poet  of  the  Tale  rationalises  Boyan 's 
powers  by  adding  such  words  as  "in  fancy  "  to  his  account  of 
them,  but  the  old  conception  of  the  bard  shines  through.  More- 

1  Rybnikov,  i,  p.  10. 

18 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

over,  the  comparison  between  Boyan  and  the  man  who  catches 
swans  with  falcons  makes  a  special  point.  Boyan  tells  of  the  past, 
of  which  he  has  no  personal  knowledge,  by  a  kind  of  divination. 
He  sets  his  powers  loose,  and  the  result  is  a  song.  This  means 
that  Boyan  relied  on  inspiration  to  a  high  degree  and  no  doubt 
made  special  claims  to  it.  Though  he  told  of  historical  events, 
he  did  so  in  a  pre-heroic  way.  We  can,  then,  see  in  Russia  a 
scheme  of  development  which  conforms  to  our  theory  of  the 
origins  of  heroic  poetry.  The  Russian  by  liny,  with  their  account 
of  heroes  and  heroic  doings,  seem  to  be  derived  from  a  pre-heroic 
manner,  like  that  of  Boyan,  but  their  spirit  owes  much  to 
panegyrics  like  the  Tale  of  Igor's  Raid. 

A  development  on  similar  lines  may  perhaps  have  taken  place 
in  ancient  Greece,  though  the  evidence  is  fragmentary  and  in- 
conclusive. The  full  fruit  of  heroic  poetry  is  of  course  to  be 
found  in  the  Homeric  poems,  but  there  are  indications  that  they 
were  preceded  by  poetry  of  a  different  kind.  The  Greeks 
attributed  their  first  poetry  to  Musaeus  and  Orpheus.  They  may 
never  have  existed,  and  certainly  nothing  of  their  work  survives, 
but  the  legends  about  them  reveal  an  early  view  of  a  poet's  nature 
and  functions.  In  the  first  place,  he  was  a  magician.  Both 
Herodotus  r  and  Plato  2  attribute  magical  powers  to  Musaeus,  and 
Euripides  does  to  Orpheus.3  In  the  second  place  the  early  poet 
possessed  a  very  special  knowledge,  not  merely  of  all  things  on 
earth  but  of  the  past  and  the  future  as  well.  The  words  which 
Homer  uses  of  the  prophet  Calchas,  that  "  he  knew  what  is  and 
what  will  be  and  what  was  before  ",4  are  applied  in  a  slightly 
different  form  by  Hesiod  to  himself  when  he  tells  how  the  Muses 
appeared  to  him  on  Mount  Helicon  and  gave  him  the  gift  of 
song.5  If  Hesiod  claims  the  powers  of  a  prophet  or  magician, 
he  shows  his  affinity  not  merely  to  Musaeus  and  Orpheus  but  to 
modern  shamans  who  claim  a  knowledge  no  less  extensive.  For 
instance,  the  Swedish  ethnographer  Castrcn  met  a  certain  Kogel- 
Khan,  who  said  of  himself:  "  I  am  a  shaman  who  knows  the 
future,  the  past,  and  everything  which  is  taking  place  in  the 
present,  both  above  and  below  the  earth  ".6  This  knowledge  of 
history  is  matched  by  a  knowledge  of  the  physical  world.  Just  as 
Tatar  sages  are  said  to  know  the  number  of  stars  in  the  sky,  of  fish 

1   viii,  96  ;  ix,  43.         2  Rep.  364^  ;  Prot,  3i6d.          3  Ale.  968,  Cycl.  646. 

4  //.  i,  70.  On  an  Etruscan  mirror  in  the  Vatican  Calchas  is  depicted  with 
wings,  a  sign,  as  J.  D.  Beazley  shows,  J.H,S.  Ixix  (1949),  p.  5,  that  he  resembles 
a  shaman.  5  Theogony,  32. 

6  Castrcn,  Nordische  Reisen  und  Forschungen,  St.  Petersburg  (1866),  iv, 
p.  202. 

19 


HEROIC  POETRY 

in  the  sea,  and  of  flowers  on  the  earth,1  so  Greek  legend  records 
that  there  was  once  a  contest  between  the  seers,  Calchas  and 
Mopsos,  about  the  number  of  figs  on  a  tree,  in  which  Mopsos 
won.2  This  shamanistic  element  seems  to  lurk  in  the  background 
of  Greek  poetry,  and  though  there  is  no  trace  of  it  in  Homer,  it 
makes  an  appearance  later  with  Aristeas  of  Proconnesus,  who  was 
said  to  be  able  to  survey  the  whole  earth  by  freeing  his  soul 
from  his  body.3  The  Greeks,  with  their  love  of  fact  and  reason, 
disowned  the  old  magical  claims,  but  they  lay  somewhere  in  the 
background  and  were  connected  by  tradition  with  their  first 
poetry. 

On  the  other  hand  the  Greeks  also  had  panegyrics  and  laments 
and  shared  the  outlook  which  these  represent.  Both  may  be  found 
in  Homer.  When  Achilles  kills  Hector,  he  turns  to  his  followers 
and  says : 

"  Now  let  us  lift  up  a  song  of  triumph,  young  men,  Achaeans, 
Unto  our  hollow  ships  let  us  go  and  take  him  with  us  there. 
Great  is  the  fame  we  have  won  ;  we  have  killed  great  Hector, 

the  god-like, 
Unto  whom,  as  a  god,  the  Trojans  prayed  in  their  city."  4 

This  is  a  simple  panegyric,  which  the  hero,  not  entirely  out  of 
character,  sings  with  his  companions  to  his  own  honour.  So  too 
when  Thetis  hears  of  Patroclus'  death,  she  leads  the  lamentation 
and  her  Nereids  join  in  it.5  Again,  when  Patroclus'  body  is 
brought  to  him,  Achilles  laments  in  a  similar  way ;  6  and  when 
Hector's  body  is  brought  back  to  Troy,  the  Trojan  women  lament 
him.7  Homer  knew  both  panegyrics  and  laments,  and  adapted 
them  skilfully  to  his  heroic  poem.  Of  course  he  is  far  from  any 
shamanistic  claims  or  practice,  but  his  forerunners  who  fashioned 
the  mighty  measures  of  Greek  heroic  poetry  may  at  some  early 
date  have  found  that  the  respect  for  human  achievement  which  is 
reflected  in  panegyrics  and  laments  opened  up  new  prospects  for 
narrative,  and  so  abandoned  the  old  magical  associations. 

Heroic  poetry  lives  side  by  side  with  panegyric  and  lament  and 
fulfils  its  own  different  function.  While  they  are  intended 
primarily  for  special  persons  and  special  occasions,  it  is  intended 
for  public  gatherings  and  may  be  performed  whenever  it  is  asked 
for.  But  there  is  inevitably  some  interaction  between  the  two 
kinds.  The  same  style  and  metres  may  be  used  indiscriminately 
in  both ;  the  heroic  outlook  and  sometimes  heroic  themes  pass 

1  N.  K.  Chadwick,  Poetry  and  Prophecy  (London,  1942),  p.  2. 

2  Hesiod,  fr.  160.  3  Maximus  Tyrius,  x,  3.  4  //.  xxii,  391-4. 

5  Ibid,  xviii,  50-51.          6  Ibid.  315-16-  7  Ibid,  xxiv,  720-22. 

20 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

from  one  to  the  other.  The  result  is  that  each  influences  the 
other,  and  it  is  not  always  easy  to  decide  to  which  kind  some  poems 
belong.  For  instance,  the  Anglo-Saxon  Brunanburh  tells  of  the 
defeat  inflicted  by  Aethelstan  on  the  allied  armies  of  Constantine, 
king  of  Scots,  and  Anlaf,  king  of  Dublin,  in  937.  It  tells  its  story 
in  a  heroic  spirit,  and  looks  like  a  heroic  poem  in  its  delight  over  a 
victorious  action  and  in  its  appreciation  of  the  glory  which 
Aethelstan  has  won.  On  the  other  hand  it  certainly  praises 
Aethelstan  and  his  men  and  has  some  airs  of  a  panegyric  when  it 
comes  to  its  triumphant  close  : 

Never  in  number 

On  this  island      in  years  aforetime 
Waxed  such  dire      destruction  of  war-men 
Slain  by  the  sword-edge,      since  —  as  the  books  say, 
Wise  old  writers,  —      from  the  East  wending, 
Angles  and  Saxons      hither  came  sailing, 
Over  broad  billows      broke  into  Britain, 
Haughty  warriors      harried  the  Welshmen, 
Earls  hungry  for  glory      gat  hold  of  the  land.1 

Brunanburh  stands  so  nicely  poised  between  panegyric  and  heroic 
lay  that  it  is  pedantic  to  try  to  assign  it  definitely  to  one  or  the 
other  class.  No  doubt  it  was  written  to  please  Aethelstan  after 
the  battle,  but  in  doing  so  the  poet  copied  heroic  models  and 
almost  succeeded  in  making  the  poem  stand  in  its  own  right. 

A  similar  interaction  between  heroic  poetry  and  lament  can 
be  seen  in  the  Greek  Death  of  the  Emperor  Constantine  Dragazis, 
which  must  have  been  composed  soon  after  the  capture  of  Con- 
stantinople by  the  Turks  in  1453  and  laments  both  the  fall  of  the 
city  and  the  death  in  battle  of  the  last  Byzantine  Emperor.  That 
it  is  really  a  lament  is  clear  from  the  opening  lines  : 

O  Christian  men  of  East  and  West,  make  oh  make  lamentation, 
Bewail  and  shed  your  tears  upon  the  greatness  of  this  ruin. 

Having  begun  like  this,  it  becomes  factual  and  objective.  It  gives 
the  exact  date  of  the  capture,  Thursday,  May  agth,  1453,  and 
then  describes  how  the  conquerors  tear  down  images,  break 
crosses,  ride  on  horseback  into  churches,  kill  priests,  and  rape 
virgins.  This  too  is  perhaps  suitable  for  a  lament.  But  from 
this  the  poet  passes  to  what  is  very  like  heroic  narrative,  and  tells 
of  the  death  of  the  emperor  : 

And  when  Constantine  Dragazis,  king  of  Constantinople, 

Heard  news  of  what  had  come  to  pass,  of  hard  and  heavy  matters, 

He  made  lament,  was  red  with  grief,  could  find  no  consolation. 

1  Brunanburh,  65-73. 
21 


HEROIC  POETRY 

His  lance  he  took  up  in  his  hand,  his  sword  he  girt  around  him, 
And  then  he  mounted  on  his  mare,  his  mare  with  the  white  fetlocks, 
And  struck  with  blows  the  impious  dogs,  the  Turks,  the  sons  of  Hagar. 
Sixty  janissaries  he  killed,  he  also  killed  ten  pashas, 
But  his  sword  was  broken  in  his  hand,  and  his  great  lance  was 

shattered  ; 

Alone,  alone  he  waited  there,  and  no  one  came  to  help  him  ; 
He  lifted  up  his  eyes  towards  heaven  and  spoke  a  prayer : 
"  O  God  and  Lord  omnipotent,  who  hast  the  world  created, 
Take  pity  on  Thy  people  and  take  pity  on  this  city  !  " 
Then  a  Turk  struck  him  heavily,  upon  his  head  he  struck  him, 
And  from  his  charger  to  the  ground  fell  Constantine  the  luckless, 
And  on  the  ground  he  lay  outstretched,  with  blood  and  dust  upon  him. 
From  his  body  they  cut  the  head,  and  on  a  pike  they  fixed  it, 
And  underneath  a  laurel-tree  made  burial  for  his  body.1 

The  poem  begins  like  a  lament  and  ends  like  a  heroic  lay,  but,  if 
it  must  be  classified,  it  is  undeniably  a  lament. 

Another  interaction  between  the  two  kinds  of  poem  can  be 
seen  in  many  pieces  which  are  not  concerned  with  present  events 
as  immediate  occasions  and  are,  therefore,  strictly  speaking, 
heroic,  but  are  none  the  less  much  influenced  in  their  form  by 
lament.  Though  Welsh  poetry  contains  almost  no  strictly  heroic 
narrative,  it  contains  a  number  of  laments  for  figures  of  the  heroic 
age,  like  those  for  Owein,  the  son  of  Urien,  and  Cunedda  in  the 
Book  of  Taliesin,  and  for  Urien  and  Cynddylan  in  the  Red  Book 
of  Hergest*  while  Irish  has  a  lament  for  Cuchulainn  by  his  wife 
Emer.3  In  other  countries  lament  passes  imperceptibly  into 
heroic  narrative  and  leaves  a  marked  impress  on  many  pieces. 
Some  Russian  byliny  look  very  like  laments  for  historical  personages 
and  have  even  developed  a  standard  shape.  For  instance,  poems 
on  the  deaths  of  Ivan  the  Terrible,  Peter  the  Great,  Catherine  II, 
and  Alexander  I  4  all  follow  the  same  scheme.  There  is  first  an 
overture  in  which  the  melancholy  scene  is  set  by  an  appropriate 
simile ;  then  the  poet  describes  a  young  soldier  standing  on 
guard ;  finally  the  soldier  tells  what  the  sovereign's  death  means 
to  the  army,  and  what  he  says  is  a  pure  lament.  In  these  poems 
there  is  a  basis  of  contemporary  history,  though  of  course  the 
authors  of  the  existing  versions  are  far  removed  in  time  from  the 
great  figures  who  are  mourned.  Some  pieces  in  the  Elder  Edda, 
notably  the  First  Lay  of  Guthrun,  make  their  dramatic  effect  by 
speeches  in  which  different  characters  lament  their  own  woes  and 

1   Legrand,  p.   75  ff.     For  other  versions  of  the  same  story  cf.   Garratt, 
p.  278  IT.  ;  Passow,  no.  cxciv. 

z  Chadwick,  Growth,  i,  p.  38.  3  Idem,  p.  54. 

4  Chadwick,  R.H.P.  pp.  210,  274,  284,  290. 

22 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

losses.  The  Bulgarian  Death  of  the  Warrior  Marko  begins  with 
Marko's  mother  looking  for  her  son  at  dawn  and  asking  the  sun 
where  he  is,  continues  with  the  sun's  story  of  his  death,  and  ends 
with  the  eagles  mourning  his  loss.1  Some  Ukrainian  dumy  are 
constructed  almost  entirely  as  laments,  like  The  Prisoner's  Com- 
plaint, which  begins  with  five  lines  telling  of  a  Cossack  in  prison, 
and  then  continues  with  forty-seven  lines  in  which  he  bewails 
his  woes.2  In  these  cases  the  heroic  poem  becomes  more  actual 
by  borrowing  from  the  lament,  but  the  heroic  form  still  survives. 
The  story  is  told  for  its  own  sake  and  has  no  external  reference. 
It  keeps  its  distance  from  its  subject  and  has  a  dramatic  independ- 
ence as  a  creation  of  the  imagination  rather  than  as  a  comment  on 
a  historical  event. 

The  actions  related  in  heroic  poetry  are  primarily  those  of 
human  beings.  It  is  anthropocentric  in  the  sense  that  it  celebrates 
men  by  showing  of  what  high  deeds  they  are  capable.  It  therefore 
differs  from  another  kind  of  poetry  which  resembles  it  in  some 
respects  and  with  which  it  may  originally  have  been  united.  This 
other  poetry  tells  of  the  doings  of  gods.  Hesiod's  Theogonv, 
which  is  almost  purely  theological,  is  composed  in  the  same 
metre,  and  in  very  much  the  same  language,  as  the  Homeric  poems, 
while  the  Norse  Elder  Edda,  which  is  the  work  of  several  authors, 
contains  poems  about  both  men  and  gods.  But  the  poets  them- 
selves seem  to  have  recognised  some  distinction  between  the  two 
kinds.  Hesiod  opens  the  Theogony  by  saying  that  the  Muses 
have  told  him  to  sing  of  "  the  race  of  the  Blessed  Gods  ",  while 
Homer  opens  the  Odyssey  by  telling  the  Muse  to  sing  of  "a 
man  ".  So  too  the  poems  of  the  Elder  Edda  never  confuse  the  two 
subjects  and  may  be  divided  easily  into  lays  of  gods  and  lays  of 
men,  thus  maintaining  a  distinction  which  seems  to  have  existed 
in  old  German  poetry,  of  which  the  two  oldest  surviving  examples 
are  Muspili  about  the  Last  Judgment  and  llildebrand  about  a 
fight  between  father  and  son.  On  the  other  hand  the  gods  play  a 
large  part  in  Homer,  and  the  Odyssey  contains  a  pure  lay  of  the 
gods  in  Demodocus'  song  of  Ares  and  Aphrodite.  So  too  in 
Gilgamish  and  in  Aqhat  the  gods  take  a  prominent  part  in  the 
action.  In  the  early  days  of  heroic  poetry  this  may  well  have 
been  common,  but  the  distinction  between  the  two  kinds  still 
holds.  Truly  heroic  poetry  deals  with  men,  and  though  it  may 
introduce  gods  into  the  action,  the  main  interest  is  in  men.  In 
more  modern  times  lays  of  the  gods  have  in  some  countries  been 
replaced  by  lays  of  saints.  These  are  common  in  Russia  and  often 

1   Derzhavin,  p.  83.  *  Scherrer,  p.  60. 

23  c 


HEROIC  POETRY 

contain  heroic  elements,  like  the  Vigil  of  St.  Dmitri,1  which  is 
superficially  concerned  with  the  victory  which  Dmitri  Donskoi 
won  over  the  Tatars  at  Kulikovo  in  1378,  but  is  really  a  poem  in 
honour  of  God  and  His  Saints  who  are  more  responsible  than 
Dmitri  for  the  victory ;  or  in  the  different  poems  which  tell  of 
the  killing  of  the  princes  Boris  and  Gleb,  sons  of  Vladimir  I,  by 
their  elder  brother,  Svyatopolk.2  Wishing  to  get  the  whole 
kingdom  for  himself,  he  has  them  murdered  and  their  bodies  cast 
into  the  woods,  where  they  remain  uncorrupted  for  thirty  years, 
when  divine  signs  show  that  they  are  saints  and  lead  to  their 
burial.  So  too  the  Jugoslavs  have  poems  in  which  the  emphasis  is 
not  on  heroic  doings  but  on  suffering  and  martyrdom,  like  Sitneun 
the  Foundling,  which  is  in  fact  a  piece  of  hagiology  in  a  heroic 
dress ;  3  and,  rather  differently,  the  tale  of  King  Stjepan,  who  is 
chidden  by  his  ecclesiastics  for  serving  wine  to  his  guests,  and 
when  he  ceases  to  do  so,  is  struck  on  the  cheek  by  an  Archangel.4 
In  these,  as  in  the  Russian  poems,  the  interest  turns  on  a  religious 
scheme  of  values  in  which  the  hero  is  submerged  in  the  saint  or 
the  sinner.  In  Christian  countries  saints  provide  the  kind  of 
poetry  which  pagan  countries  give  to  their  gods.  Just  as  the 
Homeric  Hymns,  which  tell  stories  of  the  gods,  stress  the  inferiority 
of  men,  so  Christian  poems  of  saints  reject  the  heroic  conception 
of  man  as  a  self-sufficient  being,  and  place  him  in  a  subordinate 
position  in  a  scheme  where  the  chief  characters  are  God  and  His 
angels. 

It  is  possible  that  these  poems  about  gods  and  saints  are  the 
direct  progeny  of  a  truly  heroic  poetry,  in  which  gods  and  men 
both  take  part.  That  this  is  an  ancient  art  is  clear  both  from  the 
Homeric  poems  and  from  Gilgamish  and  Aqhat.  The  sharp 
division  between  the  two  kinds  of  lays  in  the  Elder  Edda  looks 
like  a  sophisticated  development  of  an  art  in  which  gods  and  men 
mingled  more  freely.  Both  the  Volsungasaga  and  Saxo  Gram- 
maticus  preserve  stories  in  which  Othin  appears,  and  it  is  perhaps 
significant  that  the  Eddie  Reginsmal  confines  to  the  world  of  gods 
an  action  which  the  Saga  divides  between  gods  and  men.  That 
such  methods  existed  in  old  Germanic  poetry  may  be  suspected 
from  the  story  in  the  Origo  Gentis  Langobardorum  5  in  which 
Ambri  and  Assi,  the  Vandal  leaders,  ask  Wodan  to  give  them 
victory  over  the  Winniles.  Wodan  replies :  "  Whomsoever  I 
shall  first  look  upon,  when  the  sun  rises,  to  them  will  I  give 

1  Bezsonov,  i,  p.  673  ff. 

2  Idem,  p.  625  ff.,  gives  thirteen  versions  of  the  poem. 

3  Karadzic,  ii,  p.  57  ff.  4  Idem,  p.  93  ff. 

5  P.  2  ff.  ;   Paulus  Diaconus,  i,  8  ;   cf.  Chadwick,  PI. A.  p.  115. 

24 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

victory  ".  Then  Gambara  and  her  two  sons,  the  Winnile 
chieftains,  Ibor  and  Aio,  ask  Fria  for  her  help,  and  she  tells  them 
to  come  at  sunrise  with  their  wives  disguised  as  men  by  letting 
down  their  hair  to  look  like  beards.  At  the  moment  of  sunrise 
Fria  turns  the  bed  on  which  her  husband  Wodan  lies  towards 
the  east  and  wakes  him;  he  sees  the  Winniles  and  asks,  "  Who 
are  those  long-beards  ?  "  Fria  replies,  "  As  you  have  given  them 
a  name,  give  them  also  victory  ",  and  he  does.  This  episode 
recalls  the  Iliad  in  that  the  chief  god  and  his  wife  take  sides  in  a 
war  between  men,  and  the  goddess  tricks  her  husband  into  giving 
the  victory  to  her  favourites.  It  looks  as  if  the  old  Germanic 
poetry  contained  stories  in  which  the  gods  mingled  freely  in  the 
affairs  of  men,  as  they  certainly  do  not  in  the  Elder  Etlda. 

These  considerations  suggest  that  we  can  trace  a  series  of 
stages  in  the  development  of  primitive  narrative  poetry.  At  the 
start  is  shamanistic  poetry  in  which  the  chief  character  is  the 
magician,  and  magic  is  the  main  means  of  success.  This  is  touched 
by  the  new  spirit  of  a  man-centred  universe  which,  appearing 
separately  in  panegyric  and  lament,  then  invades  narrative  and 
produces  a  heroic  poetry  in  which  gods  and  men  both  take  part. 
This  in  turn  bifurcates  into  the  poetry  of  gods  and  the  poetry 
of  men.  Heroic  poetry  proper  thus  covers  the  whole  of  the 
second  stage  and  half  of  the  third.  It  is  composed  in  the  convic- 
tion that  its  characters  belong  to  a  special  superior  class,  which  it 
sets  apart  in  a  curious  kind  of  past.  Just  as  the  Greeks  believed 
that  for  a  period  which  lasted  for  some  four  generations  and  had 
as  its  main  events  the  sieges  of  Thebes  and  of  Troy,  men  were 
heroes  and  performed  tasks  unusually  hazardous  and  glorious,  so 
the  Germanic  peoples  in  Germany,  Scandinavia,  England,  Ice- 
land, and  Greenland  believed  in  a  heroic  age  of  some  two  centuries 
which  contained  the  great  figures  of  Ermanaric,  Attila,  and 
Theodoric,  and  had  as  one  of  its  chief  episodes  the  destruction 
of  the  Burgundians  by  the  Huns.  Something  of  the  same  kind 
may  be  seen  in  mediaeval  France  with  its  conception  of  a  heroic 
society  clustered  round  Charlemagne  in  his  wars  against  the 
Saracens ;  in  Armenia  with  its  arrangement  of  heroic  legends 
round  four  generations  of  which  the  most  important  is  dominated 
by  David  of  Sasoun  and  his  wars  against  the  Egyptians  and  the 
Persians ;  in  Albania  with  its  cycle  of  tales  about  wars  between 
the  Mohammedan  Albanians  and  the  Christian  Slavs  after  the 
Turkish  invasion.  Modern  scholarship  has  usually  been  able  to 
relate  these  different  heroic  ages  to  an  established  chronology. 
If  there  is  still  some  doubt  whether  the  Trojan  War  took  place 


HEROIC   POETRY 

early  in  the  twelfth  century  B.C.,  there  is  no  doubt  about  the 
existence  of  the  great  Germanic  heroes  in  the  fourth,  fifth,  and 
sixth  centuries  A.D.,  or  of  Charlemagne  about  800,  or  of  David  of 
Sasoun  in  the  tenth  century,  or  of  Albanian  wars  in  the  fifteenth. 
But  the  poets  are  not  interested  in  dates  and  hardly  mention 
them ;  nor,  if  asked,  would  they  be  able  to  supply  them.  What 
matters  is  a  scheme  which  brings  persons  and  events  together 
and  provides  a  general  plan  within  which  the  poet  can  work. 
The  same  is  true  of  other  cycles  for  which  no  historical  foundation 
has  been  found.  The  Kara- Kirghiz  centre  their  poems  round 
the  great  figures  of  Manas,  his  son  and  his  grandson  ;  the  Kalmucks 
round  Dzhangar ;  and  the  Ossetes  round  the  Narts  with  their 
leaders,  Uryzmag  and  Batradz.  So  conceived  a  heroic  age  has  a 
unity  and  completeness.  What  happens  outside  it  is  of  little 
importance  and  receives  scant  notice.  Round  certain  places,  such 
as  Troy  or  the  Rhine  or  Aix-la-Chapelle  or  Sasoun  or  the  Tien- 
Shan  or  the  borders  of  Tibet  or  the  Caucasus,  memory  gathers  a 
number  of  stories  between  which  there  are  many  interrelations. 
The  different  characters  who  play  their  parts  in  such  a  cycle  are 
sufficiently  connected  with  each  other  for  the  whole  to  present  an 
air  of  unity.  This  system  has  the  advantage  that  by  bringing 
well-known  figures  into  new  relations  poets  can  widen  the  scope 
of  their  art  and  throw  new  light  on  old  themes. 

This  simple  conception  is,  however,  not  universal.  Not  all 
countries  have  heroic  ages  so  clearly  defined  as  those  mentioned 
above.  The  remains  of  heroic  poetry  in  Spain  suggest  that  such 
a  cycle  never  existed  there.  The  Cid  tells  of  events  in  the  eleventh 
century,  but  fragments  of  other  poems  are  concerned  with  earlier 
periods.1  The  tale  of  Conde  Fernan  Gonzalez  belongs  to  the 
tenth  century,  that  of  the  Infante  Garcia  to  the  eleventh,  as  do 
those  of  the  sons  of  King  Sancho  of  Navarre  and  of  Sancho  1 1  and 
Zamora.  These  stories  are  hardly  connected  with  one  another, 
except  that  they  belong  to  the  history  of  Castile,  and  there  is  no 
indication  either  of  a  heroic  age  or  of  a  heroic  cycle.  In  modern 
Greece  a  long  sequence  of  historical  events  has  inspired  poets  to 
many  unrelated  songs.2  The  earliest  events  belong  to  the  career 
of  Digenis  Akritas,  who  is  thought  to  have  died  in  788  on  the 
Anatolian  frontier  of  the  Byzantine  Empire,  but  other  poems  tell 
of  the  flight  of  Alexius  Comnenus  in  1081,  the  siege  of  Adrianople 
by  Amurath  in  1361,  the  fall  of  Constantinople  in  1453,  the  battle 

1  Cf.    R.    Men^ndez   Pidal,    Poesia  juglaresca  y  juglares    (Madrid,     1924), 
p.  317  ff. 

2  Cf.  Entwistle,  p.  307  ff. 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

of  Lepanto  in  1571,  the  defeat  of  AH  Pasha  hy  Botzaris  in  1792, 
the  defence  of  Missolonghi  in  1824,  and  events  even  more  modern 
down  to  our  own  time.  Though  some  Jugoslav  lays  are  concerned 
with  the  battle  of  Kosovo,  where  the  Serbian  kingdom  went  down 
before  the  Turks  in  1389,  this  is  not  the  only  or  indeed  the  most 
popular  centre  of  interest.  Some  poems  tell  of  events  before 
it,  others  of  the  fifteenth  century,  or  the  revolt  of  1804,  or  even 
of  the  wars  of  the  twentieth  century.  The  Albanians  have  poems 
on  Skanderbeg  or  their  fights  with  the  Slavs,  but  they  have  many 
poems  on  other  times  and  other  subjects.  Similarly  though  many 
of  the  Russian  byliny  are  centred  on  Vladimir,  prince  of  Kiev, 
who  reigned  from  1113  to  1125,  many  others  tell  of  later  events 
in  the  times  of  Ivan  the  Terrible,  the  false  Dmitri,  Peter  the  Great, 
Potemkin,  Alexander  I,  Lenin,  and  Stalin.  These  later  figures 
are  not  usually  confused  with  those  of  an  earlier  age  and  tend  to 
fall  into  independent  cycles  of  their  own.  The  poets  treat  them 
as  separate  parts  of  their  repertory  but  regard  them  all  as  equally 
heroic.  Even  when  a  cycle  is  firmly  established,  as  it  is  with  the 
Germanic  peoples,  the  poets  sometimes  desert  it  to  sing  of  con- 
temporary events,  as  in  77?^  Battle  of  Hafsfjord,  which  tells  of  the 
victory  by  which  in  872  Harold  Fairhaired  made  himself  king  of 
all  Norway.  So  too  Maldon,  which  is  more  austerely  and  more 
essentially  heroic  than  any  other  Anglo-Saxon  poem,  was  corn- 
posed  after  a  battle  between  the  English  and  the  Norsemen  in  991. 
Evidently  the  poet  thought  that  such  a  battle  was  in  the  true 
heroic  tradition  and  should  be  celebrated  accordingly.  The 
strength  of  such  a  tradition  can  be  seen  in  the  use  of  the  old 
alliterative  measure  for  the  poem  Scottish  Field,  written  after  the 
defeat  of  the  Scots  by  Henry  VIII  at  Flodden  in  1513.  The 
heroic  spirit  may  live  so  long  and  remain  so  lively  that  its  poets 
refuse  to  confine  it  to  the  limits  of  a  cycle,  and  do  not  shrink  from 
singing  about  events  of  recent  times. 

Secondly,  though  we  ourselves  may  like  to  date  a  heroic  age, 
if  we  can,  and  relate  it  to  some  historical  scheme,  we  may  well 
doubt  if  the  poets  do  anything  of  the  kind.  Homer  gives  no 
indication  of  date  for  the  Siege  of  Troy,  and  such  dates  as  we 
have  are  the  production  of  Greek  chronographers  who  lived 
centuries  after  him.  Gilgamish  is  equally  silent  and  moves  in  a 
self-contained  world  of  the  past.  The  same  is  true  of  the  Kal- 
mucks, the  Kara- Kirghiz,  the  Uzbeks,  and  the  Ossetes.  The 
author  of  Roland  may  perhaps  assume  that  his  audience  knows 
when  his  heroes  lived,  but  he  does  not  help  with  information 
about  it.  On  the  whole,  heroic  poetry  gives  no  indications  of  date. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

To  this  general  rule  there  are  some  exceptions.  A  very  few  poems, 
like  a  Russian  poem  on  the  death  of  Skopin  '  and  a  Greek  poem 
on  the  capture  of  Constantinople,2  actually  supply  dates.  The 
first  may  be  due  to  literary  influence,  the  second  to  the  importance 
of  an  occasion  which  had  become  a  landmark  in  history  and  was 
remembered  as  a  day  of  terrible  disaster.  More  commonly,  a 
vague  formula  connects  a  story  with  a  remote  past.  So  the  Kazak 
Sain  Batyr  begins  with  the  words  : 

When  earlier  generations  lived, 
When  forgotten  peoples  lived  .  .  .3 

The  Norse  Short  Lay  of  Sigurth  and  Atlamdl  use  a  short  formula 
"  of  old  ",  while  the  First  Lay  of  Ilelgi  Hundingsbane  is  rather 
more  elaborate  : 

In  olden  clays      when  eagles  screamed 
and  the  Lay  of  Hamther  takes  two  lines  : 

Not  now,  nor  yet      of  yesterday  was  it, 
Long  the  time      that  since  hath  lapsed. 

None  the  less  very  little  is  said,  and  the  poet  is  plainly  indifferent 
to  chronology.  The  Russian  poets  do  something  else.  They 
begin  a  poem  by  connecting  it  with  some  prince  or  tsar,  as 

Glorious  Vladimir  of  royal  Kiev, 
He  prepared  a  glorious  honourable  feast, 
or 

In  mother  Moscow,  in  stone-built  Moscow, 
Our  Tsar  was  reigning,  Ivan  Vasilevich. 

This  is  useful  chiefly  for  showing  to  what  cycle  an  episode  belongs. 
Nor  do  the  poets  always  use  it.  Though  Ilya  of  Murom  is  closely 
connected  with  Vladimir,  at  least  one  poem  neglects  the  connec- 
tion and  begins  : 

Who  is  there  who  could  tell  us  about  the  old  days, 
About  the  old  days,  and  what  happened  long  ago  ?  4 

When  a  modern  composer  of  byliny,  Marfa  Kryukova,  begins  her 
Tale  of  Lenin,  she  follows  custom  in  not  worrying  too  much  about 
dates.  She  feels  that  she  must  say  something ;  she  may  even 
know  that  Lenin  was  born  in  the  reign  of  Alexander  II,  but  she 
does  not  trouble  to  be  precise,  and  places  her  story  simply  and 
firmly  in  the  bad  old  days  : 

1  Kireevski,  vii,  p.  ir. 

2  Legrand,  p.  75.     For  another  Greek  example  cf.  Baggally,  p.  70. 

3  Radlov,  iii,  p.  205.  f   Kireevski,  i,  p.  i. 

28 


THE   HEROIC  POEM 

In  those  days,  in  former  days, 

In  those  times,  in  former  times, 

Under  Big-Idol  Tsar  of  foul  memory.  .  .  .* 

The  truth  is  that  composers  of  heroic  poetry  are  not  really 
interested  in  chronology  and  know  very  little  about  it.  They  are 
usually  unlettered  and  cannot  consult  the  books  in  which  history 
is  set  out  as  a  sequence  of  events  with  dates.  For  them  a  heroic 
tale  has  an  existence  with  other  tales  of  the  same  kind,  and  its 
interest  is  not  consciously  historical  but  broadly  and  simply 
human.  So  far  as  they  have  a  conception  of  a  heroic  age,  it  is 
artistic.  It  simplifies  a  mass  of  material,  relates  different  stories 
to  one  another,  and  conjures  up  a  world  in  which  heroes  live  and 
act  and  die.  This  is  different  both  from  the  outlook  of  panegyrics 
and  laments  which  are  concerned  with  some  particular  occasion 
already  known  to  the  audience,  and  from  the  outlook  of  romance 
which  sets  its  characters  in  some  never-never-land  of  the  fancy. 

This  art,  which  is  concerned  with  the  great  doings  of  men, 
tells  stories  because  men  like  to  hear  them.  The  poet  wishes  not 
to  instruct  but  to  delight  his  audience.  Modern  travellers  who 
have  studied  the  performances  of  heroic  poems  among  the 
Russian,  the  Jugoslavs,  and  the  Asiatic  Tatars  agree  that  the 
poet's  sole  aim  is  to  give  pleasure.  His  is  an  artistic  performance, 
to  which  the  guests  or  the  crowd  enjoy  listening.  This  confirms 
what  some  heroic  poets  say  about  their  art.  Though  Hesiod  was 
not  a  great  composer  of  heroic  songs,  he  knew  about  them  and 
says  that,  when  a  man  is  full  of  sorrow,  he  should  listen  to  songs 
of  glorious  deeds  and  he  will  be  cheered.2  Homer  illustrates  how 
this  happens.  His  bards  claim  that  their  performances  give 
pleasure  and,  after  holding  the  company  in  thrall,  are  con- 
gratulated for  their  skill.3  The  same  thing  happens  in  Beowulf 
at  the  feast  which  follows  the  rout  of  Grendel,  when  there  is 
recitation  and  music,  and  there  is  no  doubt  of  their  success  : 

The  lay  was  finished, 

The  gleeman's  song.    Then  glad  rose  the  revel ; 
Bench-joy  brightened. 4 

Heroic  poets  assume  that  their  task  is  to  give  pleasure  through 
their  art,  and  they  depict  imaginary  bards  as  doing  this.  For  this 
reason  heroic  poetry  is  a  notably  objective  art.  The  poets  can 
think  of  no  better  entertainment  than  stories  of  great  men  and 
great  doings. 

1  Andreev,  p.  523.  *  Theogony,  97-103. 

3  Od.  i,  337,  347  ;  viii,  44-5.  4  Beowulf,  1066-8. 

2Q 


HEROIC  POETRY 

To  this  general  practice  there  are  some  not  very  significant 
exceptions.  The  fervent  patriotism  of  the  Jugoslavs  overflows 
into  their  heroic  poetry  and  often  provides  its  special  character. 
The  bards  assume,  no  doubt  correctly,  that  their  audiences  enjoy 
hearing  of  great  national  efforts.  But  sometimes  this  perfectly 
legitimate  interest  may  become  a  little  didactic,  and  the  poem 
then  becomes  a  means  to  inflame  patriotism  by  noble  examples. 
Even  so  the  didactic  element  is  not  very  aggressive,  and  we  may 
hardly  notice  it  in  such  a  description  of  heroic  songs  as  we  find  in 
llaramabasa  Curia  : 

Then  the  heroes  sang  the  songs  of  heroes 
To  the  music  of  the  maple  gusle, 
Songs  about  the  deeds  of  ancient  heroes, 
I  low  this  one  was  famous  in  the  marches 
And  how  he  did  honour  to  his  brothers, 
By  his  courage  and  fair  reputation, 
And  still  lives  to-day  in  song  and  story 
As  a  pride  and  glory  to  the  nation.1 

But  after  all,  national  pride  is  a  legitimate  pleasure,  and  heroic 
poetry  cannot  fail  at  times  to  promote  it.  The  same  excuse  can 
hardly  be  made  for  the  many  gnomic  and  moralising  passages 
which  give  Beowulf  an  almost  unique  place  among  heroic  poems. 
Not  only  does  the  poet  make  his  characters  enounce  a  number  of 
impeccable  maxims,  but  he  himself  intersperses  improving  reflec- 
tions, as  when  he  points  out  the  different  destinies  that  await 
the  good  and  the  bad  after  death  (184  tf.),  or  praises  the  advantage's 
of  generosity  (20  ff.),  or  announces  that  a  man  must  trust  in  his 
own  strength  (1534).  He  passes  laudatory  judgment  both  on 
Scyld  and  on  Beowulf  in  the  same  words  —  "  that  was  a  good 
king  "  (i  i  and  2390)  —  and,  though  he  praises  gentleness  and  kind- 
ness, he  is  enough  of  this  world  to  praise  the  glory  which  it  gives 
( 1 387  ff.).  The  poet  might  almost  be  regarded  as  an  early  exponent 
of  that  moralising  for  which  his  countrymen  have  shown  such  a 
predilection  in  later  times,  but  a  more  likely  explanation  is  that, 
since  he  stands  on  the  threshold  between  a  heroic  outlook  and  a 
Christian,  he  is  sometimes  hard  pressed  to  combine  both,  and 
does  so  only  by  emphatic  maxims  which  proclaim  that,  despite 
his  primitive  story,  he  is  a  good  Christian  at  heart. 

_ Heroic  poetry  is  impersonal,  objective,  and  dramatic.  The 
story  is  its  chief  concern.  It  is  not  addressed  to  any  single  patron, 
but  stands  in  its  own  world,  complete  and  independent,  and 
conjures  up  its  figures,  their  setting  and  their  behaviour.  Despite 

1  Morison,  p.  10. 

3° 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

great  differences  of  skill  and  quality  most  poets  do  what  Aristotle 
says  of  Homer  :  "  Homer,  with  little  prelude,  leaves  the  stage 
to  his  personages,  men  and  women,  all  of  them  with  characters 
of  their  own  JV  Heroic  poetry  is  indeed  close  to  drama  in  its  lack 
of  criticisms  and  comments.  Whatever  direction  the  poet  may 
give  to  his  story,  he  keeps  it  vivid  and  independent.  In  primitive 
societies  the  audiences  who  listen  to  him  partake  in  their  imagina- 
tions of  the  events  related,  as  if  they  themselves  were  spectators 
of  them.  They  are  held  by  excitement  at  what  happens,  by 
anticipation  of  what  will  come  next,  by  the  special  appeal  of  this 
or  that  character  or  episode  or  description.  No  doubt  they  form 
their  own  likes  and  dislikes  for  characters,  their  own  approvals 
and  disapprovals,  but  these  are  natural  and  simple  reactions. 
The  poet's  hearers  hardly  need  his  help  to  tell  them  what  to 
think.  They  agree  with  him  in  a  general  conception  of  what  men 
ought  to  be  and  follow  him  easily  without  fuss  as  he  unfolds 
his  tale. 

This  dramatic  objectivity  can  be  seen  in  the  large  part  given 
to  speeches  delivered  by  the  different  characters.  Wherever 
heroic  poetry  exists,  speeches  are  to  be  found  and  are  among  its 
peculiar  glories.  In  Homer  or  Beowulf  or  Roland  they  are  con- 
ceived on  a  generous  scale.  The  Kara- Kirghiz  and  Uzbek  poets 
use  them  with  an  even  broader  scope.  One  of  their  functions  is 
to  fill  in  the  background  of  a  hero's  life  with  reminiscence  and 
reference,  as  Homer  makes  Nestor  boast  of  his  lost  youth  or 
Phoenix  tell  of  his  lurid  past.  They  can  also  touch  on  other 
stories  which  lie  outside  the  poet's  immediate  subject,  as  Homer 
touches  on  Heracles  or  Perseus  or  Daedalus  or  Theseus  or  almost 
forgotten  wars  which  Priam  fought  against  the  Amazons  or  the 
Pylians  against  the  Arcadians  on  the  river  Celadon,  or  the  poet  of 
Beowulf  introduces  references  outside  his  immediate  purview  to 
Sigemund  or  Heremod  or  Thryth  or  the  war  between  the  ( Teats 
and  the  Swedes.  Speeches  also  serve  to  reveal  a  hero's  personality 
by  the  way  in  which  he  speaks  about  himself.  In  Armenian 
poems  about  David  of  Sasoun  they  give  a  delightful  touch  of 
humanity  and  humour  to  the  not  always  very  heroic  characters. 
In  the  poems  of  the  Achins  they  are  said  to  be  composed  with  a 
good  eye  to  dramatic  effect,  and  one  of  the  finest  passages  in  the 
poem  Pochut  Muhamat,  which  tells  of  Sumatran  wars  in  the  first 
half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  is  that  in  which  the  mother  of  a 
young  prince  urges  him  not  to  take  part  in  an  expedition  to  a 
region  where  they  fight  not  with  cut  and  thrust  but  with  fortifica- 

1  Poetics>  14603  10. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

tions  and  firearms.1  Speeches  are  of  course  useful  as  a  kind  of 
action  in  themselves,  especially  when  they  are  parts  of  a  debate 
or  a  quarrel,  but  the  emotions  which  they  express  and  their 
personal  approach  to  many  matters  of  interest  help  the  poet  to 
display  his  powers  outside  the  bounds  of  strict  narrative.  By 
identifying  himself  with  his  characters  he  can  indulge  emotion 
and  sentiment,  and  adds  greatly  to  the  richness  and  variety  of  his 
poetry. 

The  fascination  of  dramatic  speeches  is  so  great  that  sometimes 
they  constitute  almost  complete  poems,  in  which  one  or  more  of 
the  characters  tell  in  their  own  persons  what  happens.  There  is  a 
strong  tendency  towards  this  in  some  pieces  of  the  Elder  Edda, 
and  it  is  notable  that  the  old  Danish  poems  translated  into  Latin 
verse  by  Saxo  Grammaticus  all  purport  to  be  told  by  some  heroic 
character  who  speaks  in  the  first  person,  though  Saxo  introduces 
or  explains  them  with  prose  passages  in  the  third.  It  has  been 
thought  that  this  use  of  the  first  person  is  very  primitive  and 
anterior  to  the  use  of  the  third.  But  this  seems  unlikely  for  more 
than  one  reason.  In  most  primitive  peoples  the  third  person  is 
used,  and  there  is  no  evidence  that  it  has  been  preceded  by  the 
first.  Indeed  the  use  of  the  first  is  very  rare.  Outside  Saxo's 
translations,  which  come  from  the  very  end  of  the  Norse  heroic 
tradition,  it  exists  mainly  among  the  Ainus,  whose  art  is  highly 
accomplished,  and  in  some  old  Turkic  inscriptions  from  the  river 
Orkhon,  which  are  memorials  to  the  dead  and  follow  the  con- 
vention that  the  dead  man  speaks  for  himself.  The  third  person 
is  the  usual  instrument  for  narrative,  and  when  heroic  poetry  uses 
the  first,  it  is  a  sign  not  of  primitive  character  but  of  an  advanced 
art  which  hopes  to  secure  a  greater  dramatic  effect  by  cutting  out 
the  poet  as  an  intermediary  and  bringing  the  audience  into  what 
looks  like  direct  contact  with  the  heroes  and  heroines  who  tell 
their  own  tales.  We  might  be  tempted  to  draw  other  conclusions 
from  such  a  poem  as  the  Norse  Helgakvitha  Iljorvarthssonar, 
where  all  the  verse  is  dramatic,  and  any  elements  of  narrative 
are  supplied  by  prose,  but  the  text  is  certainly  composite  and 
corrupt,  and  too  much  must  not  be  deduced  from  it.  In  general, 
we  may  say  that  the  semi-dramatic  form  of  some  heroic  poetry  is 
due  to  the  poets'  desire  to  present  a  situation  as  vividly  as  possible. 
Since  heroic  poetry  admits  speeches  freely,  there  is  after  all  no 
reason  why  a  poem,  especially  a  short  poem,  should  not  consist  of 
a  speech  or  speeches  and  very  little  else.  Such  an  art  satisfies 
the  needs  of  narrative  by  keeping  events  vividly  before  us. 

1   Hurgronje,  ii,  p.  95. 
32 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

When  a  situation  is  presented  through  words  spoken  by  one 
of  the  characters  in  it,  the  audience  is  made  to  feel  that  it  listens 
to  some  important  participant  in  a  great  crisis  and  enjoys  a  first- 
hand account  of  it.  When  the  Ukrainian  dumy,  after  a  short 
prelude  or  introduction,  make  some  hero  tell  his  own  story,  they 
give  a  personal  quality  to  it  and  show  what  it  means  to  those 
who  take  part  in  it.  A  good  example  of  the  same  art  can  be  seen 
in  a  Russian  by  Una,  which  Richard  James,  an  Oxford  graduate, 
recorded  in  Moscow  in  1619,  when  he  was  chaplain  to  the  English 
merchants  there.  The  poem  is  close  to  a  lament  and  no  doubt 
owes  much  to  the  traditional  form  of  the  Russian  plach,  which  is 
still  popular  at  funerals.  It  tells  of  the  grief  of  Ksenya,  daughter 
of  Boris  Godunov,  for  her  father,  who  died  in  1605,  and  is  thus 
quite  close  to  the  events  which  it  portrays  and  clothes  with  a 
convincing  actuality.  In  its  short  space  it  has  considerable  grace 
and  pathos  and  a  sympathetic  understanding  of  what  her  situa- 
tion means  to  the  bereaved  princess  : 

The  little  white  bird  laments, 

The  little  white  quail : 

"  Alas,  that  I  so  young  must  mourn  ! 

They  will  burn  the  green  oak, 

And  destroy  my  little  nest, 

And  kill  my  little  fledglings, 

And  capture  me,  the  quail." 

The  princess  laments  in  Moscow  : 

"  Alas,  that  I  so  young  must  mourn  ! 

When  the  traitor  comes  to  Moscow, 

Grisha  Otrepev,  the  unfrocked  priest, 

He  will  imprison  me, 

And,  having  imprisoned  me,  will  shave  off  my  hair 

And  put  monastic  vows  on  me. 

But  I  do  not  wish  to  be  a  nun, 

Or  to  keep  monastic  vows. 

The  dark  cell  must  be  thrown  open 

That  I  may  look  on  fine  young  men. 

Ah  me,  our  pleasant  corridors, 

Who  will  walk  along  you, 

After  our  royal  life, 

And  after  Boris  Godunov  ? 

Alas,  our  pleasant  halls, 

Who  will  dwell  within  you, 

After  our  royal  life, 

And  after  Boris  Godunov  ?  "  J 

The  appeal  of  this  little  poem  is  that  it  presents  a  pathetic  situa- 
tion from  the  view  of  someone  who  suffers  in  it,  and  this  gives 

1  Kireevski,  vii,  p.  58  ff.,  Chadwick,  R.H.P.  p.  219  ff. 

33 


HEROIC  POETRY 

the  directness  of  a  personal  revelation.  It  owes  much  to  the  art  of 
the  lament,  but  this  has  been  transposed  to  a  new  use  in  which 
narrative  and  drama  are  united. 

Some  Norse  poems  of  the  Elder  Edda  use  a  similar  dramatic 
technique  with  a  greater  boldness.  While  the  Second  Lay  of 
Guthrun  is  spoken  throughout  by  a  single  character,  other  poems 
give  an  interchange  of  speeches  between  two  or  three  or  four 
characters.  The  dramatic  effect  is  heightened  because  the  poet 
sometimes  plunges  straightway  into  speeches  and  does  not  say 
who  the  speaker  is.  The  speeches  succeed  each  other  in  rapid 
change  and  counterchange,  and  though  each  is  short,  the  whole 
effect  is  of  a  vivid,  living  scene.  There  is  no  need  to  think  that 
the  different  parts  were  originally  taken  by  separate  performers. 
Indeed  the  Nornagests  Saga  indicates  that  one  performer  was 
enough,  since  it  tells  of  a  stranger's  visit  to  the  court  of  King 
Olaf  Tryggvason  and  of  his  recitation  of  Brynhild's  Hell  Ride, 
which  is  entirely  a  dialogue  between  Brynhild  and  a  giantess.1 
The  dramatic  art  of  the  Elder  Edda  is  not  that  of  a  mimetic  rite 
but  an  extension  of  narrative  towards  drama  by  making  it  more 
concentrated  and  more  vivid.  A  good  performer  would  no  doubt 
do  something  towards  acting  the  different  parts,  but  the  result 
is  still  narrative.  The  special  power  of  this  art  can  be  seen  from 
the  First  Lay  of  Guthrun.  Its  subject  is  Guthrun's  grief  at 
Sigurth's  death,  and  it  shows  this  in  its  tragic  strength,  first  by 
telling  of  Guthrun's  silence  while  other  women  lament  their  woes  : 

Then  did  Guthrun      think  to  die 
When  she  by  Sigurth      sorrowing  sat ; 
Tears  she  had  not,      nor  wrung  her  hands, 
Nor  ever  wailed  as  other  women.2 

Then  Guthrun  breaks  into  her  lament,  and  with  that,  we  might 
almost  think  the  poem  should  end.  But  the  story  is  not  yet 
complete.  Guthrun's  lament  awakes  qualms  in  Brynhild  and 
makes  her  feel  bitter  regret  for  encompassing  Sigurth's  death. 
The  poem  is  almost  a  drama,  in  which  speeches  take  the  place  of 
action  until  the  unexpected  climax  comes. 

A  special  dramatic  device  used  in  long  heroic  poems  is  that 
by  which  an  important  hero  tells  part  of  his  own  story  in  the  first 
person.  The  classic  case  of  this  is  the  tale  which  Odysseus  tells 
to  Alcinous  and  his  court  of  his  wanderings  from  the  sack  of 
Troy  to  his  arrival  on  Calypso's  island.  This  story  has  of  course 

1   Cap.  9  ;   cf.  N.  Kershaw,  Stories  and  Ballads  of  the  Far  Past,  p.  33  ff. 
2  Guthninarkvithat  i,  i. 

34 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

been  frequently  imitated  in  "  literary  "  epic  from  Virgil  to 
Voltaire.  But  Homer  is  not  unique  among  "  primitive  "  poets  in 
his  use  of  the  device.  In  Gilgamish  Uta-Napishtim,  the  Baby- 
lonian precursor  of  Noah,  tells  the  story  of  the  Flood,  and  in 
modern  times  the  Kara-Kirghiz  bard,  Sayakbai  Karalaev,  does 
something  similar  when  he  makes  Alaman  Bet  tell  his  own  story 
in  some  4500  lines.1  In  long  poems  this  device  brings  considerable 
advantages  to  the  composition.  It  enables  Homer  to  keep  his  plot 
in  hand  and  save  it  from  becoming  too  episodic.  The  story  told 
by  Odysseus  has  its  own  coherence  because  his  personality 
dominates  it,  whereas,  if  it  were  told  in  the  third  person,  it  would 
certainly  disturb  the  balance  of  the  whole  poem.  But  this  method 
has  other  advantages.  By  making  the  hero  tell  his  own  story  the 
poet  brings  him  closer  to  us  and  makes  his  personality  more  vivid. 
Just  as  Homer  presents  Odysseus'  adventurous  spirit  through  the 
blithe  recklessness  with  which  he  takes  risks  and  then  surmounts 
them  by  brilliant  improvisations,  so  in  Gilgamish  >  when  Uta- 
Napishtim  tells  his  own  story  and  explains  why  the  gods  have 
given  him  immortality,  we  see  how  different  he  is  from  Gilgamish 
who  seeks  immortality  but  is  destined  not  to  win  it,  and  Karalaev 
gives  a  deeper  insight  into  the  character  of  Alaman  Bet,  who  is  by 
birth  a  Chinese  but  has  become  a  Moslem  by  conversion  and  is 
something  of  an  oddity  in  Kara-Kirghiz  society.  This  device  is 
possible  only  in  narrative  of  some  scale,  but  is  in  fact  an  extension 
of  the  dramatic  speeches  found  in  short  poems  like  the  Russian 
by  liny  and  the  Norse  Elder  Edda. 

From  this  it  is  no  great  step  to  composing  a  whole  poem  in  the 
first  person  as  if  the  hero  himself  were  relating  it.  This  is  what 
the  Ainus  do  both  for  poetical  narrative  and  prose  folk-tales. 
Though  it  clearly  makes  the  events  more  immediate  and  more 
dramatic,  there  is  no  need  to  assume  that  it  is  shamanistic  and 
that  the  poet  identifies  himself  with  the  hero.  There  is  no  call 
for  him  to  be  anything  more  than  an  actor.  Of  course  a  simple 
audience  will  always  tend  to  identify  the  actor  with  the  part  which 
he  assumes  and  may  well  believe  that  for  the  moment  it  hears 
the  hero  speaking  about  himself  and  his  adventures.  But  this 
device  can  be  used  in  quite  sophisticated  poetry,  like  the  Arabian 
The  Stealing  of  the  Mare>  in  which  the  story  is  told  by  the  hero, 
Abu  Zeyd,  in  the  first  person.  It  is  true  that  he  sometimes  lapses 
into  the  third,  but  that  is  no  more  than  T.  E.  Lawrence's  friend, 
King  Auda,  used  to  do  when  he  "  spoke  of  himself  in  the  third 
person  and  was  so  sure  of  his  fame  that  he  loved  to  shout  out 
1  Manas,  pp.  158-232. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

stories  against  himself  ".*  The  highly  dramatic  character  of  this 
poem  owes  much  to  its  special  manner  of  narration. 

Heroic  poetry  requires  a  metre,  and  it  is  remarkable  that,  as 
the  Chad  wicks  have  shown,2  it  is  nearly  always  composed  not  in 
stanzas  hut  in  single  lines.  The  line  is  the  unit  of  composition, 
and  in  any  one  poem  only  one  kind  of  line  is  used.  This  is 
obviously  true  of  the  dactylic  hexameter  of  the  Homeric  poems, 
the  line  with  four  "  beats  "  of  Gilgamish^  the  accentual  alliterative 
verse  of  Old  German  and  Anglo-Saxon,  the  Norse  fornyrthislag 
or  "  old  verse  "  and  mdlahdttr  or  "  speech  measure  ",4  the  verse 
of  the  Russian  byliny  with  its  irregular  number  of  syllables  and 
fixed  number  of  artificially  imposed  stresses,5  the  ten-  and  sixteen- 
syllable  trochaic  lines  of  the  Jugoslavs,6  the  eight-syllable  line  of 
the  Bulgarians,  the  TTO\ITIKOS  ari-xps  or  fifteen-syllable  line  of  the 
modern  Greeks,7  the  sixteen-syllable  line,  with  internal  rhymes, 
of  the  Achins,8  and  the  Ainu  line  with  its  two  stresses,  each  marked 
by  a  tap  of  the  reciter's  stick.  Each  line  exists  in  its  own  right 
as  a  metrical  unit  and  is  used  throughout  a  poem. 

To  this  general  rule  there  are  exceptions  both  apparent  and 
real.  Apparent  exceptions  are  those  cases  in  which  series  of  lines 
are  bound  together  by  final  assonance  or  rhyme  and  look  like 
stanzas.  The  Kara-Kirghiz,  Uzbeks,  and  Kazaks  use  a  standard 
line,  thejyr,  of  three  feet  which  vary  from  two  to  four  syllables, 
and  the  lines  are  grouped  in  sets  of  varying  length  which  are  held 
together  by  assonance  or  the  repetition  of  a  word.0  In  Roland 
the  line  is  of  ten  syllables,  and  groups  of  lines  are  held"  by  asson- 
ance. In  the  Cid  the  line  varies  from  ten  to  over  twenty  syllables 
and  may  have  had  a  fixed  number  of  imposed  stresses  like  the 
Russian  line,  while  the  groups  of  lines  are  held  by  rude  rhymes  or 
assonance.  The  Albanian  lines,  with  seven  or  eight  syllables  and 
trochaic  rhythm,  are  similarly  grouped.  The  Armenian  line  is 
almost  as  free  as  the  Russian,  but  it  too  tends  to  form  rhyme- 

1   Revolt  in  the  Desert  (London,  1927),  p.  94.  2  Growth,  iii,  p.  751  IF. 

3  The  "  beat  "  is  not  a  syllable  but  a  word  or  word-group. 

4  Philpotts,  p.   32  ff.     Perhaps  the  earliest  known  example  of  Germanic 
verse  is  the  inscription  on  the  golden  horn  (c.  A.D.  300),  which  was  stolen  from 
the  Copenhagen  Museum  in  1802  :  W.  P.  Ker,  The  Dark  Ages  (London,  1904), 
p.  232. 

5  Of.  Entwistle,  p.  383. 

6  The  sixteen-syllable  line,   or  bugarStica,   is  probably  older  and  may   be 
simply  a  combination  of  two  eight-syllable  lines  such  as  are  still  used  in  Bul- 
garian. 

7  Perhaps  the  earliest  example  of  this,  in  a  quantitative  form,  is  what  Philip 
of   Macedon    sang    on   the    field     of   Chaeronea,    Plut.    Dem.   20  :    A^/zoo-feVrjs 
ArjfjLoaOevovs  I  Fcunrieus1  ra8'  ctnev. 

8  Hurgronje,  ii,  p.  75,  the  fourth  syllable  rhymes  with  the  sixteenth,  and  the 
eighth  with  the  twelfth.  9  Radlov,  iii,  p.  xxiv. 

36 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

groups  of  very  varying  length.  In  all  these  cases  the  sets  of  lines 
look  at  first  sight  like  stanzas,  but  are  not  really  so,  since  the  real 
essence  of  a  stanza  is  that  it  is  of  a  fixed  shape  and  length,  and 
these  groups  are  not.  They  vary  a  good  deal  in  length,  and  the 
constant  element  in  them  is  the  single  line.  In  principle  there  is 
no  difference  between  them  and  the  technique  of  Homer  or 
Beowulf. 

A  special  problem  is  presented  by  some  poems  of  the  Elder 
Edda,  in  which,  though  a  single  line  is  used  throughout,  it  tends 
to  fall  into  regular  four-lined  stanzas.  This  is  the  case  with  most 
of  the  strictly  heroic  poems  which  tell  a  story  in  a  straightforward 
manner.  The  line  used  is  based  on  the  old  Germanic  metre,  and 
we  cannot  doubt  that  the  Norse  technique  is  derived  from  a  system 
in  which  the  line,  and  not  the  stanza,  was  the  unit.  We  have, 
however,  to  explain  why  lines  tend  to  fall  into  stanzas.  It  is 
clear  that  they  do  not  regularly  do  so,  since  the  Codex  Regius, 
which  preserves  the  poems,  presents  sometimes  groups  of  six 
lines  and  sometimes  of  two.  To  attribute  this  to  the  editor's  or 
the  copyist's  errors  is  almost  impossible.  The  six-lined  groups 
cannot  usually  be  reduced  to  four  lines  without  spoiling  their  sense, 
nor  is  it  always  necessary  to  assume  that  something  is  missing 
from  the  two-lined  groups.  On  the  other  hand  the  tendency  to 
fall  into  stanzas  is  undoubtedly  present.  Perhaps  the  best  explana- 
tion is  that  the  collection  of  these  poems  was  made  when  they 
had  passed  out  of  current  use  arid  were  not  well  remembered, 
and  that  those  who  claimed  to  know  them  tended  unconsciously 
to  reshape  them  into  something  akin  to  the  ballad-stanza  which 
was  common  in  the  poetry  of  the  day. 

There  are,  however,  more  serious  exceptions  to  the  general 
rule  than  this.  Some  other  poems  in  the  Elder  Edda  are  composed 
in  the  Ijothahdltr  or  "  chant-metre  ",  which  is  undeniably  a  stanza 
and  not  a  series  of  metrically  uniform  lines.  Its  form  is  : 

Who  are  the  heroes      in  Hatafjord  ? 

The  ships  are  covered  with  shields  ; 
Bravely  ye  look,      and  little  ye  fear, 

The  name  of  the  king  would  I  know.  l 

So  far  as  strictly  heroic  subjects  are  concerned,  this  metre  is  used 
only  in  the  third  section  of  the  Lay  of  Helgi,  and  in  a  single 
strophe  each  of  Helgi  Hundingsbane  II  and  the  Lay  of  Hamther. 
In  the  last  two  cases  it  is  plainly  an  intrusion  from  later  versions 
of  the  stories,  and  even  in  the  Lay  of  Helgi  it  looks  as  if  the 

1  Helgakvitha  Hjorvarthssonar,  12. 

37 


HEROIC  POETRY 

collector  of  the  poems,  anxious  to  make  the  story  complete,  had 
used  what  is  really  a  ballad  and  not  a  heroic  poem.  These  cases 
are  not  important  but  they  show  the  beginnings  of  a  process  in 
which  the  art  of  heroic  poetry  is  changed  into  something  else.  A 
more  violent  change  has  happened  to  the  Ukrainian  dumy.  We 
may  surmise  that  originally  the  Ukraine,  which  is  the  country  of 
Kiev  and  the  heroic  world  of  Vladimir,  had  a  heroic  poetry 
whose  technique  resembled  the  free  and  easy  methods  of  the 
Talc  of  Igor's  Raid.  The  modern  art  may  be  derived  from  this 
since  it  uses  lines  of  very  varying  length,  but  it  differs  in  its  use  of 
rhyme,  usually  in  couplets.  The  system  may  be  seen  in  Marusja 
Boguslavska  : 

This  request  alone  I  make  you,  pass  not  by  Boguslav's  town. 
To  my  father  dear  and  mother  make  this  news  known  : 

That  my  father  dear  grieve  not, 
Alienate  not  store  of  treasure,  ground  or  plot, 

That  no  store  of  wealth  he  save, 

Neither  me,  Marusja  the  slave, 

Child  of  Boguslav  the  priest, 

Evermore  seek  to  release, 
For  become  a  Turk  I  am,  I'm  become  a  Mussulman, 

For  the  Turk's  magnificence, 

And  for  rny  concupiscence.1 

The  general  effect  here  is  more  like  that  of  a  song  than  we  expect 
in  a  heroic  poem.  Here  too  we  may  see  a  process  of  decomposi- 
tion. The  old  heroic  form  has  broken  down  and  been  replaced 
by  something  which  is  half-way  towards  song  composed  in 
rhymed  stanzas. 

With  these  exceptions,  which  come  from  regions  where  a 
traditional  style  has  begun  to  decay,  heroic  poetry  uses  the  single 
line  as  its  metrical  unit  of  composition  and  gains  certain  advantages 
from  it.  The  superiority  of  the  line  over  the  stanza  is  that  it 
allows  more  scope  and  variety  in  telling  a  story.  The  poet  can 
vary  between  long  and  short  sentences,  and  produce  unusual 
effects  by  breaking  or  ending  a  sentence  in  the  middle  of  a  line  ; 
he  is  free  to  make  full  use  of  conventional  formulae  and  phrases, 
to  introduce  descriptions  of  places  and  things  without  having  to 
make  them  conform  to  the  demands  of  a  stanza.  But  though  the 
line  has  these  advantages  over  the  stanza,  it  does  not  follow  that  it 
owes  its  use  to  this  cause.  Heroic  poetry  seems  always  to  be 
chanted,  usually  to  some  simple  stringed  instrument,  like  the 
Greek  lyre,  the  Serbian  gusle,  the  Russian  balalaika,  the  Tatar 

1   Entwistle,  p.  377  ;  Scherrer,  p.  67. 

38 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

koboz,  or  the  Albanian  lahuta.  The  music  to  which  poems  are 
sung  is  usually  not  a  real  or  a  regular  tune  but  a  monotonous 
chant  in  which  the  bard  often  keeps  whole  lines  on  a  single  note. 
Such  indeed  is  said  to  be  the  regular  practice  in  Albania,  and  the 
heroic  Jugoslav  chants  recorded  by  Milman  Parry  are  monotonous 
and  lacking  in  melody.  There  certainly  seems  to  be  no  evidence 
that  a  special  poem  has  its  own  tune.  Among  famous  Russian 
bards  the  elder  Ryabinin  knew  only  two  tunes,  and  "  the  Bottle  " 
one.1  This  is  quite  a  different  art  from  the  melodies  which 
accompany  lyrical  poetry,  give  pleasure  for  their  own  sake,  and 
are  as  likely  to  obscure  as  to  illustrate  the  words.  Heroic  poetry 
puts  the  words  first  and  subordinates  the  music  to  them.  What 
it  uses  is  really  no  more  than  recitative.  To  use  a  regular  tune  like 
that  of  a  song  would  have  made  the  task  of  heroic  poets  much  more 
difficult  and  have  interfered  with  the  clear  presentation  of  the 
tales  which  they  have  to  tell. 

This  consideration  may  help  to  elucidate  the  troublesome 
question  of  the  relation  of  heroic  poetry  to  ballads.  At  the  outset 
we  may  notice  that  many  poems  called  ballads  are  actually  heroic 
poems.  This  is  true  of  the  Russian  byliny,  the  Jugoslav  and 
Bulgarian  "  national  songs  ",  the  lays  of  Esthonia,  Albania,  and 
modern  Greece.  But  other  ballads,  which  really  deserve  the 
name,  are  different.  England,  France,  Germany,  Scandinavia, 
and  Rumania  have  narrative  poems  which  differ  from  heroic  lays 
in  that  they  are  composed  in  regular  stanzas  and  sung  to  recurring 
tunes.  Although  the  spirit  of  Edward,  my  Edward  or  Chevy  Chase 
or  Sir  Patrick  Spens  is  undeniably  heroic,  the  form  is  not  that  of 
heroic  poetry,  and  the  difference  of  form  marks  a  real  difference 
in  function.  Such  ballads,  with  their  regular  tunes  and  their 
occasional  refrains,  belong  to  song  rather  than  to  recitative,  and 
may  originally  have  been  accompanied  by  some  sort  of  dance  or 
mimetic  gesture.  Their  form  gives  a  pleasure  different  from  that 
of  the  chanted  lay.  Music  plays  a  greater  part  in  it,  and  the 
narrative  not  only  ceases  to  be  the  chief  source  of  interest  but 
tends  to  be  treated  in  a  more  impressionistic  way  which  emphasises 
less  the  development  of  a  story  than  certain  vivid  moments  in  it. 
Even  the  Spanish  romances,  which  sometimes  look  like  broken 
fragments  of  epic  and  undoubtedly  have  some  connection  with  it, 
are  really  examples  of  this  art.  Their  tunes  are  essential  to  their 
performance ;  they  have  many  lyrical  qualities.  The  distinction 
bet\veen  heroic  poetry  and  ballads  is  not  so  much  of  matter  and 
spirit  as  of  form  and  function  and  effect. 

1   Rybnikov,  i,  p.  xciii. 

39  D 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Heroic  poetry  is  not  only  objective  but  claims  to  tell  the  truth, 
and  its  claims  are  in  general  accepted  by  its  public.  In  his 
Preface  to  the  Heimskringla  or  Saga  of  the  Norse  Kings  Snorri 
Sturluson,  who  lived  from  1178  to  1241,  and  knew  what  he  was 
talking  about,  explains  that  among  his  materials  are  "  songs  and 
ballads  which  our  forefathers  had  for  their  amusement  ",  and 
adds  "  now,  although  we  cannot  say  just  what  truth  there  may 
be  in  these,  yet  we  have  the  certainty  that  old  and  wise  men  hold 
them  to  be  true  ".  The  stories  may  in  fact  not  all  be  true,  but  they 
were  thought  to  be.  In  considering  these  words  we  must  re- 
member that  one  generation's  idea  of  truth  differs  from  another's, 
and  that  unlettered  societies  lack  not  only  scientific  history  but  any 
conception  of  scientific  truth.  For  them  a  story  is  sufficiently 
true  if  it  gives  the  main  outlines  of  events  and  preserves  important 
names ;  it  is  not  impaired  by  the  poet's  imaginative  treatment  of 
details.  Hesiod  indeed  tells  that,  when  the  Muses  appeared  to 
him  they  said  : 

We  can  make  false  things  seem  true,  so  great  is  our  skill, 
For  we  know  how  to  utter  the  truth  when  that  is  our  will.1 

But  few  poets  and  few  audiences  make  so  conscious  a  distinction 
as  this,  and  on  the  whole  heroic  poetry  claims  to  tell  its  own  kind 
of  truth.  Its  authority  is  in  the  first  place  tradition.  Its  stories 
are  those  which  have  been  handed  down  by  generations  and  are 
sanctified  by  the  ages.  It  is  no  accident  that  Russian  heroic  poems 
are  called  either  by  liny,  "  events  of  the  past  ",  or  stariny,  "  tales 
of  long  ago  ".  Such  stories  command  respect  because  they  are 
old,  and  men  often  assume  that  their  ancestors  knew  more  than 
they  themselves  do.  The  heroic  poet  speaks  with  the  authority  of 
tradition  and  passes  on  what  he  himself  has  heard  from  his  elders. 
A  story  becomes  more  respectable  by  being  old  and  popular. 
The  poet  of  Ilildehrand  begins  by  saying  simply,  "  I  have  heard  it 
said  ",  just  as  Yakut  and  Kalmuck  poets  often  say  "  as  they  say  " 
or  "  as  it  is  said  ".  In  the  same  way  the  Norse  poet  of  the  Lament 
of  Oddntn  states  his  credentials  when  he  begins  : 

I  have  heard  it  told      in  olden  tales 
How  a  maiden  came      to  Morningland. 

In  heroic  poetry  it  is  commonly  assumed  that  age  confers  dignity 
on  a  story,  and  that  what  has  been  long  preserved  is  likely  to 
be  true. 

To  the  authority  of  tradition  some  poets  add  the  authority  of 
inspiration  by  some  divine  power  which  it  would  be  improper  to 
1   Theogony,  27-8.     Trs.  J.  Lindsay. 
40 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

question.  Even  Hesiod  makes  such  a  claim  for  himself  when  he 
says  that  the  Muses  appeared  to  him  on  Helicon  and  gave  him  a 
voice  to  tell  of  the  past  and  the  future.1  No  doubt  this  is  a 
shamanistic  survival,  but  it  fits  easily  into  the  heroic  scheme,  and 
the  audiences  accept  such  a  claim.  Whatever  Homer  meant  when 
he  told  the  Muses  to  tell  of  the  wrath  of  Achilles  or  of  the  man  of 
many  wiles,  it  is  clear  that  he  claims  some  kind  of  supernatural 
authority  for  what  he  is  going  to  say  and  assumes  that  his  audience 
will  accept  it.  His  own  Phemius,  who  is  the  bard  at  Odysseus' 
home  in  Ithaca,  says  that  a  god  has  planted  songs  in  him.2  In 
the  same  way  a  Kara- Kirghiz  bard,  whom  Radlov  knew,  said  :  "  I 
can  sing  every  song ;  for  God  has  planted  the  gift  of  song  in  my 
heart.  He  gives  me  the  word  on  my  tongue  without  my  having  to 
seek  it.  I  have  not  learned  any  of  my  songs  ;  everything  springs 
up  from  my  inner  being,  from  myself."  3  Whether  by  tradition 
or  inspiration,  heroic  poetry  sets  out  to  tell  stories  which  contain 
some  element  of  truth,  and  the  poet's  credulity  reflects  that  of  the 
society  in  which  he  lives.  There  comes,  sooner  or  later,  a  time 
when  the  old  stories  are  no  longer  believed,  and  then  the  old 
poetry  loses  its  hold  on  an  audience  which  is  now  instructed  by 
books  and  newspapers.  When  this  happens,  the  poet  may  still 
assert  his  rights  and  claim  that  he  possesses  a  special  knowledge. 
Wrhen  the  Kara- Kirghiz  bard,  Sagymbai  Orozbakov,  tells  in  his 
Manas  of  the  destruction  of  the  giantess  Kanyshai,  he  evidently 
feels  that  his  audience  is  likely  to  be  sceptical,  and  makes  con- 
cessions in  advance  : 

Everything  in  this  tale  you'll  find, 
Entanglement  of  false  and  true. 
All  happened  very  long  ago, 
Eye-witnesses  are  hard  to  find  ! 
To  these  wonders  no  one  testifies  ; 
What  was,  what  not,  are  here  confused. 
This  is  a  tale  of  long  past  years, 
An  ineffaceable  trace  of  the  past. 
The  world  to-day  believes  it  not. 4 

But  until  such  doubts  arise,  the  bard  is  regarded  as  an  authority  on 
the  past.  He  provides  history  as  well  as  poetry.  And  this,  more 
than  anything  else,  separates  heroic  poetry  from  romance  which 
candidly  tells  stories  which  everyone  knows  to  be  untrue. 

The  study  of  heroic  poetry  depends  on  material  of  a  very 
mixed  character.  In  the  first  place  it  is  still  a  living  art  in  some 
countries  and  may  be  studied  at  first  hand.  It  lives  by  recitation 

1    Theogony,  32.        z  Od.  xxiii,  347.        '   Radlov,  v,  p.  xvii.        4  Manas,  p.  254. 

A.I 


HEROIC   POETRY 

and  is  seldom  written  down  except  by  enquiring  scholars  from 
outside.  In  consequence  such  texts  as  we  have  are  almost 
haphazard  records  of  what  has  been  an  enormous  mass  of  recited 
poetry.  This  material  is  none  the  less  of  primary  importance. 
The  poems  show  the  art  as  it  is  really  practised  by  living  men,  but 
they  suffer  from  a  serious  defect.  The  oral  poet  usually  composes 
as  he  recites,  and  for  a  successful  performance  he  needs  an 
audience  in  sympathy  with  him  and  eagerly  intent  on  hearing 
what  he  has  to  say.  When  a  stranger,  interested  in  oral  poetry 
for  scholarly  or  scientific  reasons,  arrives  and  asks  him  to  recite  a 
poem,  the  result  is  not  always  satisfactory.  In  the  old  days  when 
the  scholar  took  down  the  words  in  long  hand,  he  was  necessarily 
too  slow  for  the  poet  and  hampered  the  free  flow  of  his  composi- 
tion. In  consequence,  as  some  of  the  poems  recorded  by  Radlov 
from  the  Asiatic  Tatars  indicate,  the  poet,  deprived  of  his  usual 
setting  and  audience  and  for  that  reason  not  at  his  ease,  is  even 
less  at  his  ease  when  he  has  to  go  slowly  and  pause  for  his  words  to 
be  written  down.  Even  with  such  devices  as  recording  by  dicta- 
phone there  still  remains  the  difficulty  that  any  stranger  may  by 
his  mere  presence  hamper  and  discourage  a  poet,  especially  if  he 
employs  some  outlandish  mechanical  apparatus.  Though  many 
oral  poems  have  been  recorded  in  the  last  eighty  years,  we  cannot 
assume  that  they  are  the  best  of  their  kind  or  even  the  best  that 
an  available  poet  can  produce.  They  are  representative  in  the 
sense  that  they  are  genuine,  but  their  worth  is  a  matter  of  accident. 
Our  second  source  consists  of  those  poems  which  by  some 
happy  chance  have  survived  in  written  form  from  the  past.  These 
have  at  least  this  in  common,  that  they  were  for  some  reason 
written  down,  often  at  times  when  writing  was  not  common  and 
used  chiefly  for  legal  documents  or  sacred  books.  The  Homeric 
poems,  for  instance,  were  probably  written  down  because  of  their 
literary  excellence,  and  the  handsome  manuscript  of  Beowulf^ 
suggests  that  some  rich  man  wished  it  to  be  preservecTTn  his 
library.  On  the  other  hand  the  Oxford  manuscript  of  Roland  has 
no  such  distinction  and  seems  to  be  a  kind  of  "  prompter's  copy  ", 
used  to  refresh  the  bard's  memory  when  he  needed  it.  Since 
poems  are  preserved  for  quite  different  reasons,  none  of  which  is 
inevitable,  it  is  clear  that  many  other  poems  of  equal  or  greater 
merit  have  not  been  preserved,  simply  because  no  one  thought  of 
having  them  written  down.  Even  when  someone  has  decided  that 
a  poem  should  be  recorded,  the  dangers  are  not  over.  The  Elder 
Edda,  with  its  unique  collection  of  old  Norse  poetry,  was  written 
down  by  someone  who  could  not  get  complete  texts  of  all  the 

42 


THK  HEROIC  POEM 

poems  and  was  sometimes  forced  to  combine  various  poems  into 
one,  sometimes  unable  to  say  where  one  poem  ended  and  another 
began.  Even  when  they  have  been  recorded,  poems  have  to  face 
all  the  dangers  that  threaten  books.  In  classical  antiquity, 
perhaps  at  the  library  of  Alexandria,  something  was  preserved  of 
the  heroic  epic  of  Eumelus  of  Corinth,  who  lived  about  700  B.C. 
and  told  of  subjects  rather  outside  Homer's  range.  But  of  this 
work  there  remain  only  a  few  lines  and  a  few  references.1  The 
unique  manuscript  of  Beowulf  was  damaged  by  fire  in  1731,  anc 
at  the  same  time  Maldon,  which  was  discovered  in  the  seventeen!  1 
century,  was  destroyed  only  five  years  after  Thomas  Hearne'j 
editio  princeps  of  it.  The  fragment  of  The  Fight  at  Fhmsburh, 
which  survived  by  an  accident  in  a  book-cover  at  Lambeth,  was 
afterwards  lost.  Only  happy  chances  have  revealed  the  remains 
of  the  Old  German  Hildebrand  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  Waldhere ; 
for  they  too  were  found  in  book-covers,  the  one  at  Cassel  and  the 
other  at  Copenhagen  ;  and  since  1945  Hildebrand  has  disappeared. 
The  epic  of  Gilgamish  has  an  even  more  fortuitous  history.  Its 
remains  have  been  unearthed  by  archaeologists  on  clay  tablets 
which  range  from  before  2000  B.C.  to  600  B.C.  and  are  composed 
variously  in  Old  Babylonian,  Hittite,  Assyrian,  and  New  Baby- 
lonian. We  must  be  content  with  what  we  have  and  recognise 
that  enormous  tracts  of  heroic  poetry  have  been  lost  for  ever. 

Heroic  poetry  suffers  from  the  special  danger  that,  when  it 
ceases  to  be  fashionable,  it  disappears.  Fortunately  the  Greeks 
never  abandoned  their  love  for  Homer,  and  that  is  why  his  poems 
are  so  well  preserved.  But  other  countries  have  been  less  faithful. 
Though  we  know  that  Charlemagne  was  interested  in  "  barbarous 
and  ancient  songs  "  and  ordered  collections  of  them  to  be  made,2 
nothing  survives  from  his  project  with  the  possible  exception  of 
Hildebrand,  which  seems  at  least  to  have  been  written  clown  at  this 
time.  Indeed  Hildebrand  is  the  only  relic  of  the  great  art  of 
heroic  song  which  once  flourished  in  Germany,  though  its  themes 
survive  in  Norse  and  Anglo-Saxon  poetry  and  in  later  German 
adaptations.  How  vigorous  and  widespread  this  art  was  in  the 
fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  centuries  A.D.  is  clear  from  external  evidence 
not  far  removed  from  it  in  time.  Jordanes,  himself  a  Goth, 
records  that  his  countrymen  sang  to  the  lyre  songs  about  their  an- 
cestors, notably  Eterpamara,  Hanala,  Fridigernus,  and  Vidigoia.3 
These  were  no  doubt  great  figures  in  their  day,  but  of  them  only 
Vidigoia  has  any  place  —  as  Wudga  —  in  existing  poetry.  In  the 

1   G.  Kinkel,  Epicorum  Graecorum  Fragenta  (Leipzig,  1877),  p.  185  fif. 
2  Egginhard,  Vita  (laroli  Magni,  29.  l  (jetica,  5. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

fifth  century  Sidonius  Apollinaris,  bishop  of  Auvergne,  knew  of 
Ostrogothic  songs  which  appealed  to  King  Theodoric  II  because 
they  "  encouraged  manliness  of  spirit  'V  and  suffered  from  having 
to  listen  to  Burgundians  singing  to  the  lyre.2  But  no  Gothic  songs 
survive,  and  the  nearest  approach  to  one  is  the  Norse  Battle  of  the 
Goths  and  the  Huns,  which  may  be  based  on  a  Gothic  original. 
Other  Germanic  peoples  practised  the  same  art  with  a  similar  fate. 
In  the  sixth  century  Gelimer,  king  of  the  Vandals,  was  himself  a 
minstrel,3  and  about  580  Venantius  Fortunatus  addresses  to  Lupus, 
the  Frankish  duke  of  Aquitaine,  a  poem  in  which  he  speaks  of 
barbarians  singing  to  the  harp.4  Paul  the  Deacon  reports  that 
Alboin,  king  of  the  Langobards,  who  died  in  572,  was  sung  by 
Saxons,  Bavarians,  and  other  peoples.5  [_In  the  same  way  we 
cannot  doubt  that  there  was  once  a  Swedish  heroic  poetry,  since 
there  are  references  to  Swedish  history  in  BcoivuJf,  a  runic  monu- 
ment in  Sodermaniand  illustrates  the  tale  of  Sigurth,6  and  the 
Rok  stone  in  Ostergcitland  has  enigmatic  verses  which  may  refer 
to  Theodoric.7  There  was  once  a  Swedish  branch  of  this  Germanic 
poetry,  as  there  were  other  branches,  but  no  single  text  has  survived 
from  it. 

This  lack  of  old  German  texts  may  to  some  extent  be  counter- 
balanced by  material  derived  from  original  poems  which  have  long 
been  lost.  The  wealth  of  old  Danish  poetry  can  be  seen  from  the 
Latin  epitomes  of  Saxo  Grammaticus,  who  wrote  about  A.D.  1200, 
when  the  art  was  not  sufficiently  moribund  to  prevent  him  collecting 
interesting  stories,  like  that  of  Ingeld,  who  is  known  to  Beowulf, 
of  Hamlet,  and  many  others  whose  names  have  survived  else- 
where. His  worth  is  proved  by  his  adaptation  into  Latin  verse 
of  the  Bjarkamdl,  of  which  a  few  lines  survive  in  Norse  and  show 
that  he  was  reasonably  conscientious.  Other  stories,  which  seem 
to  be  derived  from  heroic  lays,  survive  in  historians.  Procopius' 
account  of  the  death  of  Hermegisclus,  king  of  the  Warni,  looks 
like  a  loan  from  a  poem  of  Frankish  origin.8  Paul  the  Deacon 
and  the  anonymous  author  of  the  Origo  Gentis  Langobardorum 
tell  stories  which  have  a  truly  heroic  temper  and  may  well  be 
derived  from  songs.  Alboin's  visit  to  Turisind,  whose  son  he 
has  slain  in  battle,  recalls  Homer's  account  of  Priam's  visit  to 
Hector  ;  9  the  battle  of  the  Langobards  and  the  Vandals  is  Homeric 
in  the  role  which  it  gives  to  the  gods  in  the  conduct  of  human 

1  Ep.  i,  2.  2  Carm.  12.  3  Procopius,  Bell.  Vand.  ii,  6. 

4  Carm.  vii,  8,  61  ff.  5  i}  27. 

6  M.  P.  Nilsson,  Homer  and  Mycenae  (London,  1933),  p.  192. 

7  Stephens,  Handbook  of  the  Old  Runic  Monuments  (London,  1884),  p.  32  ff. 

8  Bell.  Got.\v,  20.  9  Paulus  Diaconus,  i,  24. 

44 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

affairs ;  l  the  swift  retribution  for  brutal  conduct  which  brings 
death  to  Alboin  is  in  the  strict  tradition  of  heroic  morality.2 
Perhaps,  too,  even  in  England  legends  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  con- 
quest may  have  survived  in  poems  which  were  known  to  the  first 
historians  and  chroniclers.  The  story  of  Hengest,  as  it  is  told  in 
the  Historia  Britonum,3  with  its  broken  promises,  its  sacrifice  of 
the  king's  daughter  to  the  invading  chief,  its  four  great  battles,  and 
its  sense  of  a  desperate  struggle  against  an  enemy  who  seems  to 
have  limitless  reserves  of  men,  must  surely  come  from  a  poetical 
source.  These  passages  show  how  rich  the  subject-matter  of  the 
old  Germanic  poetry  was,  and  how  much  has  been  lost  with  it. 

The  same  art  was  practised  by  other  peoples  known  to  the 
Greeks  and  Romans.  We  hear  on  good  authority  that  in  the 
region  of  the  Guadalquivir  in  southern  Spain  the  people  of  the 
Turditani  had  songs  about  their  ancient  doings,4  which  can  hardly 
have  been  anything  but  heroic  songs  and  may  possibly  have 
recorded  some  of  the  people  and  events  connected  with  Tartessus, 
the  Tarshish  of  the  Bible  and  the  time-honoured  goal  of  Greek 
sailors.  At  the  other  end  of  the  ancient  world,  though  Attila, 
king  of  the  Huns,  survives  for  us  in  Norse  poems,  he  seems  not  to 
have  lacked  his  own  minstrels.  When  Priscus  visited  him  on  an 
embassy  in  448,  two  bards  recited  poems  on  the  king's  victories 
and  caused  great  emotion  among  those  present.5  Such  poems 
can  only  have  been  in  the  Hunnish  language,  and,  though  nothing 
at  all  is  known  about  them,  we  may  assume  that  in  them  Attila 
appeared  in  a  more  favourable  light  than  in  such  Norse  pieces  as 
Atlakvitha  and  Atlamdl. 

Another  serious  loss  is  the  heroic  poetry  of  Gaul  before  the 
Roman  conquest.  In  the  first  century  B.C.  the  Gauls  not  only  had 
an  art  of  panegyric  practised  by  a  professional  class  of  minstrels 
called  /Jd/>8(H,6  from  which  our  word  "  bard  "  is  derived,  but 
these  same  men  also  sang  about  the  dead  and  events  of  the  past, 
to  the  accompaniment  of  the  lyre.7  In  this  case  we  can  almost  see 
the  transition  from  panegyric  to  heroic  song.  The  bard  sings  the 
praises  of  his  master  and  passes  by  easy  stages  to  those  of  his 
ancestors  and  so  from  the  present  occasion  to  the  dateless  past. 
The  Gaulish  bards  were  also  seers  and  magicians  and  had  an 
honoured  position  in  society.8  So  perhaps  their  heroic  poetry 
was  still  close  to  the  shamanistic  stage.  These  bards  were  known 
to  Posidonius  in  the  first  century  B.C.  and  their  ways  were  studied 

1  Idem,  i,  8.  2  Idem,  ii,  28.  3  31-49  and  56.  4  Strabo,  139. 

5  Muller,  F.H.G.  iv,  p.  72.  6  Posidonius,  ap.  Athenaeus,  vi,  49. 

7  Diodorus,  v,  31  ;   Lucan,  Phars.  i,  447-9. 

8  Appian,  Celt.  12. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

by  him.  With  the  Roman  conquest  they  lost  their  position  and 
prestige,  and  though  Ammianus  Marcellinus  knew  something 
about  them  in  the  fourth  century,1  he  seems  to  have  derived  his 
information  from  Timagenes,  who  was  more  or  less  a  contemporary 
of  Posidonius.  No  doubt  when  Gaul  was  Romanised  and  the 
indigenous  language  was  largely  replaced  by  Latin,  the  old  art  of 
heroic  song  fell  into  neglect,  and  that  is  why  we  know  nothing  of 
its  contents. 

Something  equally  catastrophic  seems  to  have  happened  in 
Rome  itself.  In  the  first  century  B.C.  Cicero  laments  the  loss  of 
old  poems  which  celebrated  great  events  of  the  past.2  Such  a 
poetry  certainly  existed  and  seems  to  have  been  sung  on  convivial 
occasions  either  by  boys  with  or  without  musical  accompaniment, 
or  by  the  banqueters.3  There  is  no  need  to  assume,  as  Niebuhr 
did,  that  this  poetry  reached  epic  proportions  or  had  a  Homeric 
quality  or  even  that  it  resembled  the  reconstructions  of  it  which 
Macaulay  tried  to  provide  in  his  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome.  But  at 
least  it  provided  heroic  lays  and  told  tales  in  verse  about  such 
men  as  Romulus,4  Coriolanus,5  and  Regulus.6  Such  songs  were 
known  to  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  at  a  time  when  Cicero 
could  not  lay  hands  on  them.  Their  contents,  at  least,  survived 
in  oral  tradition  and  may  have  provided  material  indirectly  for 
the  early  books  of  Livy's  history.  Such  poems  would  have  been 
composed  in  the  indigenous  Saturnian  metre,  and  their  existence 
would  explain  why  in  the  third  century  B.C.  the  Greek  slave,  Titus 
Livius  Andronicus,  translated  the  Odyssey  into  that  measure  ;  it 
was  his  way  of  accommodating  Greek  heroic  poetry  to  its  nearest 
Latin  equivalent.  But  this  early  Roman  poetry  has  vanished,  it 
was  killed  by  the  imitation  of  Greek  models  which  became  popular 
with  Ennius.  Being  oral  and  indigenous  it  succumbed  to  the  more 
elegant,  literary  influences  which  came  from  Greece  and  sub- 
stituted books  for  recitation.  What  happened  in  these  countries 
may  well  have  happened  elsewhere  and  have  left  even  fewer 
traces.  If  we  have  nothing  left  of  early  Roman  poetry,  we  at 
least  know  a  little  about  its  contents,  and  that  is  more  than  we 
can  claim  for  the  heroic  songs  of  many  peoples  who  must  once 
have  had  them.7 

1  xv,  9,  8. 

2  Brut.  1 6,  62  ;    Tusc.  Disp.  i,  2,  3  ;    iv,  2,  3  ;    Legg.  ii,  21,  62. 

3  Cf.  J.  Witfht  Duff,  Literary  History  of  Rome  (London,  1908),  p.  72  ff. 

4  Dion.  Hal.  Ant.  Rom.  i,  79  ;    Pint.  Numa,  3. 

5  Dion.  Hal.  Ant.  Roni.  viii,  62  ;  of.  E.  M.  Steuart  in  Classical  Quarterly,  xv 
(1921),  pp.  31-7.  "   Eestus,  cd.  Lindsay,  p.  156. 

7   It  is  also  possible  that  the  Etruscans  had  a  heroic  poetry  like  the  Roman. 
At  least  it  is  otherwise  difficult  to  explain  the  occasional  appearance  on  their 

46 


THE  HEROIC  POEM 

When  the  material  is  so  accidentally  and  so  capriciously  pre- 
served, we  cannot  hope  to  give  a  comprehensive  study  of  heroic 
poetry  or  to  find  a  common  pattern  for  all  its  manifestations. 
There  may  have  been,  there  may  still  be,  forms  of  it  which  show 
unsuspected  peculiarities,  but  which  have  been  lost  or  not  recorded. 
All  we  can  hope  is  to  find  what  are  the  main  characteristics  of  this 
poetry  as  we  know  it  and  then  to  examine  some  of  its  variations. 
The  study  is  both  literary  and  social.  This  poetry  has  many 
virtues  of  its  own  and  gives  a  special  kind  of  pleasure,  but  it  is 
also  the  reflection  of  the  societies  which  practise  it  and  illustrates 
their  character  and  ways  of  thinking.  It  has  considerable  value 
for  history  because  it  exists  in  so  many  countries  and  ages,  but  its 
claim  is  not  so  much  for  the  facts  which  are  embedded  in  it  as 
for  the  light  which  it  throws  on  the  outlook  of  men  and  peoples. 
For  centuries  it  was  a  vigorous  and  popular  art.  Its  known  dates 
stretch  from  about  2000  B.C.  to  the  present  day,  but  its  beginnings 
are  lost  in  an  unreckonable  past.  It  reflects  a  widespread  desire 
to  celebrate  man's  powers  of  action  and  endurance  and  display. 
In  most  civilised  societies  it  has  long  ceased  to  count,  and  modern 
attempts  to  revive  it  seldom  ring  with  the  authentic  note.  But  in 
its  own  day  and  its  own  place  it  reflects  some  of  the  strongest 
aspirations  of  the  human  spirit,  and  still  remains  of  permanent 
value  for  all  who  care  for  simplicity  and  strength  in  human  nature 
and  in  the  use  of  words. 

works  of  art  of  stories  which  are  clearly  concerned  not  with  (I reek  hut  with 
local  heroes,  like  Caile  Vipinas  and  Avle  Vipinas  on  a  hronze  mirror  in  London 
and  on  a  wall-painting  of  the  Tomba  Francois  at  Vulci  ;  cf.  J.  D.  Beazley 
in  J.II.S.  Ixix  (1949),  pp.  16-17. 


II 

THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

THE  first  concern  of  heroic  poetry  is  to  tell  of  action,  and  this 
affects  its  character  both  negatively  and  positively.  Negatively  it 
means  that  bards  avoid  much  that  is  common  to  other  kinds  of 
poetry,  including  narrative  —  not  merely  moralising  comments 
and  description  of  things  and  place  for  description's  sake,  but 
anything  that  smacks  of  ulterior  or  symbolical  intentions.  Positively 
it  means  that  heroic  poetry  makes  its  first  and  strongest  appeal 
through  its  story.  Whatever  imagination  or  insight  or  passion  the 
bards  may  give  to  it  is  subsidiary  to  the  events  of  which  they  tell. 
If  it  has  a  central  principle  it  is  that  the  great  man  must  pass 
through  an  ordeal  to  prove  his  worth  and  this  is  almost  necessarily 
some  kind  of  violent  action,  which  not  only  demands  courage, 
endurance,  and  enterprise,  but,  since  it  involves  the  risk  of  life, 
makes  him  show  to  what  lengths  he  is  prepared  to  go  in  pursuit  of 
honour.  For  this  reason  heroic  poetry  may  be  concerned  with  any 
action  in  which  a  man  stakes  his  life  on  his  ideal  of  what  he  ought 
to  be.  The  most  obvious  field  for  such  action  is  battle,  and  with 
battle  much  heroic  poetry  deals.  Of  course  in  treating  it  the  poets 
are  interested  in  much  more  than  ideals  of  manhood.  They  like 
the  thrills  of  battle  and  know  that  their  audiences  also  will  like 
them  and  enjoy  their  technical  details.  Sometimes  the  fighting 
is  on  a  large  scale.  The  Iliad  tells  of  the  siege  of  Troy  by  the 
Achaeans  ;  Roland  of  a  great  battle  between  Charlemagne's  army 
and  the  Saracens ;  the  Cid  of  wars  in  Spain  against  the  Moors  ; 
Mai  don  of  a  deadly  struggle  between  English  and  Vikings  in 
Essex  ;  Marias  of  a  great  Kara-Kirghiz  expedition  against  China  ; 
the  poems  on  Dzanghar  of  battles  between  the  Kalmucks  and 
their  mysterious  enemies,  the  Mangus ;  Uzbek  dastans  of  wars 
against  the  Kalmucks  ;  Achin  hikayats  of  wars  against  the  Dutch 
East  India  Company ;  many  Jugoslav  "  national  songs  "  of  the 
defeat  by  the  Turks  at  Kosovo  or  the  revolt  against  them  at  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century ;  mediaeval  and  modern 
Greek  rpayovSia  of  fights  on  the  frontiers  of  the  Byzantine  Empire 
or  of  efforts  to  liberate  the  homeland ;  Albanian  poems  of  Skan- 
derbeg's  resistance  to  the  Turks,  and  Armenian  poems  of  wars 
against  the  Sultan  of  Egypt  or  the  Shah  of  Persia.  But  of  course 
struggles  no  less  bloody  can  be  fought  on  almost  a  domestic  scale, 


THE  POETRY   OF  ACTION 

like  Odysseus'  vengeance  on  the  Suitors,  or  the  terrible  doom  of 
the  sons  of  Gjuki  in  Atli's  castle,  or  the  deliverance  of  his  home 
from  usurpers  by  the  Uzbek  Alpamys.  What  counts  is  the  thrill  of 
battle,  and  sometimes  this  is  keener  on  a  small  stage  than  a  large. 
When  human  foes  are  lacking,  heroic  man  fights  against  powers 
of  nature  or  monsters.  Achilles  fights  with  the  river  Scamander, 
Odysseus  battles  with  the  sea  when  his  raft  is  wrecked,  and  Beowulf 
takes  pride  in  telling  how  he  swam  with  Breca  for  five  days  and  five 
nights  in  a  wintry  sea  : 

Weltering  waves,  and  weather  coldest, 
Darkening  nights,  and  northern  wind, 
Rushed  on  us  war-grim  ;  rough  were  the  waters.1 

The  struggle  with  nature  passes  almost  imperceptibly  into  a 
struggle  with  monsters.  Just  as  in  his  swimming  Beowulf  defeats 
fierce  creatures  of  the  sea  and  Odysseus  fears  that  he  may  be 
devoured  by  some  fearful  fish,2  so  other  heroes  are  often  brought 
into  conflict  with  strange  creatures  of  primaeval  imagination.  The 
reality  of  monsters  is  taken  for  granted,  and  any  fight  with  them 
demands  truly  heroic  qualities.  The  dragons  slain  by  Sigurth  or 
Beowulf  or  Alpamys,  the  odious  Grendel  and  his  Dam  who 
devour  the  warriors  in  Hrothgar's  hall,  the  devils  who  mock  and 
harry  Armenian  heroes,  the  one-eyed  giants  against  whom  the 
Narts  wage  endless  war,  the  fiends  who  haunt  the  forests  of  the 
Yakuts,  the  prodigious  bull  which  can  kill  three  hundred  men 
with  its  breath  and  is  destroyed  by  Gilgamish  and  Enkidu,  the 
hideous  Tugarin  whose  head  is  cut  off  by  Ilya  of  Murom,  are 
suitable  opponents  for  the  heroes  whose  enterprise  and  audacity 
they  challenge.  In  some  respects  monsters  are  more  formidable 
than  human  adversaries  because  their  powers  are  largely  unknown. 
Any  means  are  justifiable  in  dealing  with  them,  and  it  is  as  heroic 
to  blind  Polyphemus  as  to  tear  off  G rondel's  arm. 

Battle  with  men  and  monsters  is  not  the  only  field  in  which  a 
hero  can  display  his  worth.  There  is  another  large  class  of 
actions,  which,  because  it  involves  risk  and  calls  for  courage,  is 
equally  suited  to  him.  Much  of  the  appeal  of  the  Odyssey  comes 
from  the  risks  which  Odysseus  takes  when  he  insists  on  hearing 
the  song  of  the  Sirens  or  finds  his  companions  drugged  by  the 
Lotos-Eaters.  In  the  Arabian  poem,  The  Stealing  of  the  Mare,3 
composed  by  Abu  Obeyd  in  the  tenth  century,  the  hero,  Abu 
Zeyd,  sets  out  to  steal  a  priceless  mare  and  faces  great  dangers  in 

1  Beowulf,  546-8.  z  Od.  v,  421. 

3  The  poem  is  admirably  translated  by  W.  S.  Blunt  in  Collected  Poems 
(London,  1914),  ii,  pp.  129-217.  Perhaps  it  is  not  strictly  heroic,  but  it  has 
enough  heroic  elements  to  deserve  consideration. 

49 


HEROIC  POETRY 

doing  so.  Priam's  visit  to  Achilles  to  ask  for  the  body  of  Hector 
is  truly  heroic  in  that  he  may  well  be  risking  his  life  in  approaching 
his  deadly  enemy.  The  Jugoslav  poems  about  Marko  Kraljevic 
often  turn  on  the  reckless  courage  with  which  Marko  faces  any 
problem  that  arises  and  his  complete  contempt  for  anyone  who 
opposes  his  will.  Russian  poems  are  not  often  concerned  with 
battles  but  prefer  to  tell  how  the  heroes  behave  in  a  way  which 
ought  to  ruin  them  but  usually  does  not,  as  when  Ilya  of  Murom 
quarrels  with  Prince  Vladimir  and  gets  the  better  of  it,  or  the  wife 
of  Staver  dresses  as  a  man  to  release  her  husband  and  is  almost 
discovered,  or  Vasili  Buslaev  breaks  the  heads  of  his  fellow- 
townsmen  but  is  saved  in  time  by  his  mother.  Part  of  our  admira- 
tion for  the  hero  is  that  he  courts  danger  for  its  own  sake  and  in 
so  doing  wishes  to  show  of  what  stuff  he  is  made. 

In  the  absence  of  enemies  or  dangerous  quests  heroes  are  not 
content  to  be  idle,  and  heroic  poetry  often  tells  of  their  attempts 
to  satisfy  their  lust  for  honour  by  athletic  pursuits  and  games 
which  they  treat  as  seriously  as  battle.  Book  XXIII  of  the  Iliad 
is  a  classic  case  of  such  games.  At  the  funeral  of  Patroclus 
Achilles  invites  the  Achaean  heroes  to  compete,  and  they  do  so 
with  full  fervour,  ability,  and  even  cunning.  There  were  probably 
similar  accounts  of  games  in  other  Greek  poems  now  lost,  like  the 
funeral  games  of  Pelias  which  were  connected  with  the  Argonauts. 
Nor  are  they  confined  to  the  Greeks.  In  the  Kara-Kirghiz  Bok- 
Miirun  a  funeral  feast  is  followed  by  horse-races  and  sports.1  All 
the  most  famous  heroes  attend,  and  catalogues  are  given  of  their 
names,  their  peoples,  and  their  horses.  In  Manas  the  heroes  play 
a  game  called  or  do  which  provokes  strong  passions  : 

They  collected  the  bones, 

They  began  to  play  very  skilfully, 

They  rolled  bone  upon  bone, 

Arousing  hatred  in  their  opponents. 

With  success,  however,  they  were  too  excited, 

They  exulted  too  early, 

A  eunning  visitor  closed  them  round, 

The  Devil  stupefied  them, 

They  moved  the  "  Khan  "  from  the  spot 

(In  ordo  too  there  is  a  "  Khan  "  !) 

That  was  the  last  throw. 

None  of  them  noticed 

That  the  "  Khan  "  stuek  on  the  edge, 

It  was  not  sent  over  the  edge.2 

1   Radlov,  v,  p.  152  ff. 

z  Manas,  p.  132.     The  game  seems  to  have  some  resemblance  to  bowls  or 
curling,  though  it  is  played  with  bones,  alchiki. 

5° 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

This  leads  to  a  violent  quarrel  which  takes  time  and  tact  to  settle. 
Since  games  involve  considerations  of  honour  and  glory,  they 
excite  violent  emotions.  That,  no  doubt,  is  why  heroes  are  not 
always  scrupulous  about  their  gamesmanship  but  do  anything  to 
win.  In  the  Iliad  when  Ajax  wrestles  with  Odysseus,  he  whispers 
to  his  opponent  to  make  it  a  sham  contest  and  then  proceeds  to 
throw  him,1  and  in  Bok-Murun  Er  Toshtuk  unchivalrously  defeats 
the  lady,  Ak  Baikal,  by  using  supernatural  means.  Fair  play 
is  not  indispensable,  since  what  matters  is  that  the  hero  should 
show  his  prowfcss  and  be  rewarded  by  success  as  the  manifest 
token  of  his  superiority. 

The  success  which  the  cult  of  honour  demands  can  be  gained 
in  many  fields  of  action,  but  wherever  it  is  found,  the  conditions 
tend  to  show  certain  fixed  characteristics.  First,  since  honour  is 
most  easily  won  by  showing  superiority  to  other  men,  there  is 
often  an  element  of  competition.  That  is  why  so  many  poems 
turn  upon  boasts  and  wagers  which  have  to  be  translated  into 
action.  Beowulf  and  Breca  spend  five  days  and  nights  in  the  sea 
because  they  have  boasted  that  they  will.2  Russian  heroes  make 
wagers  which  concern  their  honour,  as  when  Dyuk  Stepanovich 
and  Churilo  Plenkovich  boast  of  their  wealth  and  then  compete 
in  houses,  food,  drink,  horses,  and  clothes.  Whoever  wins  in 
such  a  competition  is  accepted  as  the  better  man,  and  his  defeated 
opponent  is  treated  with  contempt.  So  when  Dyuk  defeats 
Churilo,  he  rubs  in  the  moral : 

"  You  are  not  one  who  should  boast, 
Nor  are  you  one  who  should  lay  a  great  wager  ; 
Your  part  should  be  simply  to  parade  Kiev, 
To  parade  Kiev  at  the  heels  of  the  women."  3 

In  such  contests  disturbing  elements  of  pride  and  vanity  may  be 
involved.  Heroes  do  not  like  to  think  that  others  surpass  them  in 
any  respect,  and  many  of  them  resemble  Unferth  in  Beowulf,  who 
pours  scorn  on  Beowulf's  swimming-match  with  Breca  : 

For  he  allowed  not  ever      that  any  other  man 

More  of  glory      on  this  middle-garth 

Should  hear,  under  heaven,      than  he  himself.* 

It  follows  that  if  a  hero  boasts,  he  must  make  his  boast  good,  and 
if  he  fails,  he  falls  below  the  heroic  standard  of  greatness.  The 
Jugoslav  poets  like  to  make  Turks  fail  in  this  way  and  be  routed 

1  //.  xxiii,  723  ff.  2  Beowulf,  535  ff. 

3  Rybnikov,  i,  p.  98  ff.  ;    Chadwick,  R.H.P.  p.  103  ff. 

4  Beowulf,  503-5. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

by  Christians.  So  when  Musa  the  Albanian  vows  to  hang  all 
Christians,  Marko  turns  the  tables  on  him  and  cuts  off  his  head,1 
thus  showing  their  comparative  worth.  Much  heroic  poetry  acts 
on  these  principles,  and  assumes  that  competition  is  indispensable 
because  it  shows  what  a  man  really  is. 

Competition  need  not  always  be  so  stern  or  so  intolerant  as 
this.  So  long  as  the  hero  surpasses  other  men,  it  is  not  absolutely 
necessary  that  he  should  humiliate  them.  This  spirit  is  perhaps 
not  quite  so  common  as  we  might  wish,  but  it  sometimes  takes 
engaging  forms.  In  the  Ainu  Kutune  Shirka  the  hero  carries  out 
his  task  without  noticing  his  rivals  and  certainly  without  making 
them  look  ridiculous.  A  rumour  has  gone  round  that  whoever 
can  catch  a  golden  otter  in  the  sea  will  win  a  beautiful  maiden 
and  a  rich  dowry.  Heroes  gather  to  the  shore  and  try  in  turn  to 
catch  the  otter.  First  comes  the  young  Man  of  the  East : 

The  golden  otter 

Glinted  like  a  sword  ; 

Then  the  suck  of  the  tide 

Caught  it  and  pulled  it  down. 

Once  to  seaward 

With  outstretched  hand 

The  young  man  pursued  it ; 

Once  to  landward 

With  outstretched  hand 

The  man  made  after  it ; 

Then  fell  panting  upon  the  rocks.2 

After  this  failure  two  other  warriors,  the  Man  of  the  Far  Island 
and  the  Man  of  the  Little  Island,  make  similar  efforts  and  fail  in 
the  same  way.  Then  the  hero  makes  an  effort  and  succeeds  : 

The  golden  sea-otter 

Under  the  foam  of  the  waves 

Was  sucked  in  by  the  tide, 

And  I  in  my  turn 

Plunged  into  the  surf, 

Out  to  the  breakers  of  the  open  sea. 

It  slipped  from  my  hand, 

But  nothing  daunted 

I  dived  again  like  a  sea-bird 

And  with  one  foot  trod  upon  it. 

It  looked  and  saw  what  I  was, 

And  so  far  from  fearing  me 

It  came  up  and  floated  between  my  arms 

Like  a  water-bird  floating.3 

1   Karadzic,  ii,  p.  369  fF. 
2  Trs.  Arthur  Walcy,  Bottcghe  Oscure,  vii  (1951),  p.  221.        3  Idem,  pp.  222-3. 

52 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

Here  there  is  an  obvious  element  of  competition,  but  no  hostility 
between  the  competitors  or  contempt  for  those  who  fail.  The 
hero  proves  his  worth  in  a  quiet  and  modest  way,  which  is  another 
sign  of  his  superiority. 

A  second  characteristic  of  heroic  narrative  is  that  on  the  whole 
it  concentrates  on  the  happy  few  and  neglects  the  others.  In  the 
crowded  battle-scenes  of  the  Iliad  very  little  is  said  about  the 
rank  and  file.  They  are  present,  and  their  mass-action  in  advance 
or  retreat  is  sketched  in  a  few  words  or  illuminated  by  an  apt 
simile,  but  they  take  no  part  of  importance,  and  their  personal 
destinies  are  not  thought  interesting.  When  characters  of  humble 
lineage,  like  Dolon  or  Thersites,  are  necessary  to  the  story,  they 
are  made  unpleasant  or  ridiculous.  The  same  disregard  for  the 
crowd  appears  in  Roland,  where  despite  lines  like 

Common  the  fight  is  now  and  marvellous  ' 
or 

Pagans  are  slain  by  hundred,  by  thousands,2 

the  poet's  main  attention  is  given  to  individual  heroes,  few  in 
number  and  for  that  reason  greater  in  renown.  The  Cid  shows  a 
similar  spirit.  The  poet  is  much  concerned  with  the  Cid  himself 
and  his  immediate  companions,  but  hardly  with  anyone  else.  In 
Manas  the  main  parts  are  played  by  Manas  himself  and  Alaman 
Bet,  and  certain  important  moments  are  given  to  other  warriors, 
but  the  mass  of  the  army  receives  little  attention.  Even  in  the 
poems  on  the  Serb  revolt  against  the  Turks,  which  was  in  fact  a 
truly  national  rising,  the  poets  are  interested  only  in  a  few  leaders. 
It  is  true  that  at  times  they  indicate  the  wide  scale  of  events  in 
striking  lines,  like  — 

Often  did  the  armies  clash  in  combat, 

In  the  spreading  plainland  match  their  forces, 

In  the  verdant  groves  by  the  Morava, 

Drive  each  other  into  the  Morava  ; 

Red  the  river  Morava  was  tinted 

With  the  blood  of  heroes  and  of  horses.3 

But  the  main  interest  is  reserved  for  the  great  figures,  the  captains 
and  the  chieftains.  The  same  is  true  of  recent  Russian  and  Uzbek 
poems  on  the  Revolution  of  1917  and  its  subsequent  events.  In 
these  the  heroes  may  be  of  humble  origin,  but  they  are  selected 
for  special  treatment,  and  we  do  not  hear  much  about  the  rank 
and  file  or  the  proletariat  whose  cause  they  champion.  The  same 

1  Roland,  1320.  2  Ibid.  1417. 

3  Karadzic,  iv,  p.  193.    Trs.  W.  A.  Morison. 

53 


HEROIC  POETRY 

spirit  is  equally  displayed  in  peace.     When  the   Kara-Kirghiz 
bard  tells  of  the  games  held  by  Bok-Murun,  he  makes  the  host  say  : 

"  The  lower  classes  must  stand  back, 
Only  the  princes  may  take  their  places, 
Take  their  places  to  tilt  with  lances."  l 

Glory  is  the  prerogative  of  the  great,  and  the  heroic  world  is  so 
constituted  that  they  are  offered  many  chances  of  winning  it. 

To  this  general  rule  there  are  some  apparent  exceptions. 
There  are  times  in  heroic  poetry  when  humble  men  and  women 
play  parts  of  importance  and  are  treated  with  sympathy  and 
respect.  If  Homer's  swineherd,  Eumaeus,  turns  out  to  be  a  king's 
son,  yet  the  Odyssey  has  other  characters  in  lowly  positions  who 
show  a  noble  spirit,  notably  Odysseus'  old  nurse,  Euryclea,  who  is 
not  only  devoted  to  her  master  but  maintains  a  strict  control  over 
the  other  women  of  the  household,  and  the  goatherd,  Melanthius, 
who  plays  a  minor  but  not  discreditable  part  in  the  destruction  of 
the  Suitors.  Similar  characters  can  be  found  in  the  U/^bek 
Alpamys.  The  shepherd,  Kultai,  is  called  "  dear  friend  "  by  the 
hero,  his  master.  When  Alpamys  is  away,  Kultai  does  his  best  to 
look  after  his  home,  and  can  hardly  believe  his  eyes  when  his 
master  returns  : 

"  My  beloved,  my  soul,  my  child,  is  it  you  ?  " 

To  him  alone  Alpamys  confides  his  identity  and  uses  his  help  in 
ejecting  strangers  from  his  house.  Another  shepherd,  Kaikubad, 
helps  Alpamys  when  he  is  put  in  prison  by  a  Kalmuck  prince,  and 
in  return  for  this  Alpamys  gives  him  the  prince's  daughter  in 
marriage.2  Yet  though  these  humble  characters  may  have  roles 
of  some  importance,  they  are  introduced  mainly  because  they 
help  the  great  and  indeed  display  towards  them  that  self-denying 
devotion  which  a  hero  expects  from  his  servants.  They  illustrate 
not  a  primitive  democracy  but  a  truly  monarchic  or  aristocratic 
world  in  which  service  has  its  own  dignity  and  wins  its  own 
honour,  but  remains  essentially  subordinate  to  the  heroic  circle 
of  the  chief  characters. 

With  such  assumptions  about  honour,  personal  worth,  and 
aristocratic  privilege  heroic  poets  proceed  to  construct  their 
stories,  and  to  make  action  as  vivid  and  interesting  as  they  can. 
Though  their  art  is  in  most  respects  simple  enough,  it  displays 
points  of  interest  because  it  illustrates  what  a  poet  must  do  to 
create  a  poetry  of  action.  For  instance,  he  may  sometimes  produce 

1   Radlov,  v,  p.  171  ;   cf.  p.  179.  2  Zhirmunskii-Zarifov,  p.  104. 

54 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

an  effect  by  simply  mentioning  that  something  happens  and  saying 
no  more  about  it.  Some  actions  are  sufficiently  significant  for  the 
mere  thought  of  them  so  to  excite  us  that  we  do  not  ask  for  any- 
thing else.  The  momentary  impression  of  a  man  riding  across 
country  or  pursuing  an  enemy  or  falling  in  battle  may  need  no 
more  than  a  bare  statement  of  facts.  Yet  even  this  apparently 
effortless  art  is  less  simple  than  it  looks.  It  implies  some  selection 
by  the  poet  from  his  material,  and  though  this  may  be  largely 
unconscious,  it  must  be  directed  by  an  eye  for  the  essential  elements 
in  a  situation.  Indeed  the  mere  omission  of  anything  which 
might  take  our  attention  from  the  fundamental  significance  of  an 
action  is  itself  a  highly  discriminating  task.  For  instance,  in  Roland 
the  account  of  fighting  takes  a  new  and  fiercer  turn  when  Oliver, 
at  the  request  of  Roland,  ceases  to  fight  with  his  spear  and  draws 
his  sword  : 

Then  Oliver  has  drawn  his  mighty  sword 
As  his  comrade  had  bidden  and  implored, 
In  knightly  wise  the  blade  to  him  was  shewed.1 

The  very  simplicity  achieves  an  effect  of  accomplished  art.  To 
have  said  more  might  have  spoiled  the  grandeur  of  the  occasion, 
since  what  counts  is  the  direct  record  of  events,  and  for  this  no 
comment  is  needed.  The  drawing  of  the  sword  is  momentous 
because  of  the  results  which  come  from  it,  and  all  we  need  is  to 
hear  that  it  has  happened.  Much  heroic  poetry  practises  this  art. 
Since  its  first  duty  is  to  tell  a  story,  the  events  of  the  story  must 
be  clear  and  decisive.  Indeed  some  of  the  more  primitive  heroic 
lays,  like  those  of  the  Ossetes  and  the  Armenians,  have  developed 
a  kind  of  narrative  which  works  mainly  in  this  way  and  recounts 
events  rapidly  on  the  assumption  that  what  happens  is  nearly  all 
that  matters.  Of  course  for  its  successful  prosecution  this  art 
must  pick  its  emphatic  events  with  skill  and  know  what  will 
capture  the  imagination,  but  experience  teaches  how  to  do  this, 
and  such  stories  are  often  successful  in  achieving  the  desired  result. 
Since  heroic  poetry  is  nearly  always  recited  to  a  listening 
audience,  the  bard  has  not  only  to  choose  subjects  which  are  in 
themselves  attractive  but,  when  he  seeks  to  add  something  more 
interesting,  he  must  concentrate  on  a  single  mood  or  effect  and 
avoid  complication  of  any  kind.  In  this  respect  he  differs  from 
the  authors  of  "  literary  "  epic,  who,  since  they  write  for  readers, 
are  able  to  enrich  their  work  with  many  echoes  and  associations 
and  undertones.  The  oral  bard  must  go  straight  to  the  point  and 
keep  to  it.  Otherwise  he  may  confuse  his  audience  and  even 

1  Roland,  1367-9. 

55 


HEROIC  POETRY 

spoil  the  story.  So  we  find  that  he  nearly  always  concentrates  on 
one  aspect  of  a  situation  and  makes  the  most  of  it.  Of  this  Homer 
provides  many  examples.  Take,  for  instance,  the  moment  when 
Achilles  has  acceded  to  Priam's  request  for  the  body  of  Hector, 
and  food  is  spread  before  them.  The  crisis  is  over ;  the  old  man 
has  got  what  he  wishes  from  the  slayer  of  his  son.  Here  indeed 
is  an  occasion  full  of  possibilities,  but  Homer  deals  with  it  simply 
and  directly,  aiming  at  one  effect  only  : 

Then  leapt  forth  their  hands  to  the  good  cheer  outspread  afore  them. 

But  when  anon  they  had  ta'en  their  fill  of  drinking  and  eating, 

Then  Priam  in  wonder  sat  mute  as  he  gaz'd  on  Achilles, 

In  what  prime,  yea  a  man  whom  no  god's  beauty  could  excel ; 

And  Achilles  on  comely  Priam  look'd,  marvelling  also, 

Considering  his  gracious  address  and  noble  bearing  : 

Till  their  hearts  were  appeas'd  gazing  thus  on  each  other  intent.1 

Homer  conveys  a  single  impression,  the  silence  of  the  meal  while 
the  old  man  and  the  young  man  look  at  each  other.  It  is  a  triumph 
of  selection.  When  almost  any  possibility  lay  open  to  him,  he 
decided  to  do  this  and  nothing  more.  Heroic  poetry  proceeds 
in  this  way  because  it  must,  but  takes  advantage  of  it  to  create 
situations  which  look  so  simple  that  we  respond  immediately  to 
them  and  are  caught  in  a  single,  overmastering  mood. 

Fighting  is  the  favourite  topic  of  heroic  poetry.  Hardly  anyone 
can  fail  to  be  interested  in  a  good  account  of  a  fight,  but  there  is 
more  than  one  way  of  making  it  attractive.  Since  battle  tests  and 
reveals  a  hero's  worth,  interest  centres  on  his  performance  and  his 
use  of  his  natural  gifts.  Mere  physical  strength  is  hardly  ever 
enough,  and  the  hero  who  does  not  back  it  with  skill  is  of  little 
account.  He  should  combine  a  powerful  arm  with  a  good  eye. 
It  is  this  feeling  for  strong  blows  well  delivered  that  enlivens  the 
many  single  combats  of  the  Iliad  and  Roland.  To  us  perhaps 
they  may  seem  monotonous,  but  they  would  be  absorbing  to 
audiences  who  know  about  hand-to-hand  fighting  and  the  warfare 
of  cut  and  thrust.  That  is  why  the  poets  tell  where  and  how  a 
blow  is  given,  what  its  effect  is,  what  is  remarkable  about  it. 
Moreover,  since  they  are  concerned  with  a  superior  class  of 
fighting  men,  they  like  to  describe  unusual  feats  of  strength  and 
skill,  blows  of  which  no  ordinary  man  would  be  capable  but  which 
are  to  be  expected  from  heroes.  The  realities  of  war  are  thus 
subjected  to  a  selective  process  in  which  the  thrills  are  heightened 
and  the  taste  for  martial  details  amply  satisfied.  The  poet  of 
Roland  understands  this  need.  Roland  and  Oliver  deal  blows 

1  //.  xxiv,  627-33.    Trs.  Robert  Bridges. 

56 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

which  other  men  could  not.  They  slice  men  in  two  from  head  to 
seat,1  or  drive  spears  through  a  man's  shield,  hauberk,  and  body, 
or  cut  off  heads  with  a  single  stroke.  Homer's  warriors  do  not 
acquit  themselves  quite  so  splendidly  or  so  simply.  Since  their 
main  means  of  offence  is  the  thrown  spear,  what  counts  is  accuracy 
of  aim  and  strength  of  cast.  So  Homer  tells  how  they  throw  their 
spears  and  what  they  hit  with  them,  whether  the  neck  or  the 
breast  or  the  belly  or  the  buttocks.  The  thrill  comes  from  wonder- 
ing what  the  cast  of  a  spear  will  do  and  from  seeing  it  succeed  or 
fail.  For  the  audience  it  has  all  the  excitement  of  a  great  game, 
in  which  the  sides  are  well  matched  and  the  issue  depends  on 
strength  and  skill. 

The  poetry  of  combat  gains  in  intensity  when  two  great 
warriors  are  matched  against  one  other.  Then  we  enjoy  the 
spectacle  in  its  isolation  and  are  not  confused  as  we  might  be  by 
a  general  mellay.  Part  of  this  enjoyment  is  almost  physical.  We 
identify  ourselves  with  the  combatants  and  feel  the  tingling  of 
muscles  and  brawn  set  purposefully  to  work.  A  characteristic 
example  of  this  is  the  Kalmuck  account  of  a  fight  between  Khongor 
and  Arsalangin  : 

Each  strained  at  the  other  from  the  saddle 

Till  the  eight  hoofs  of  their  horses  were  mingled. 

But  neither  was  victorious. 

They  unsheathed  their  glittering  swords  from  their  covers, 

Seven  and  eight  times  they  dealt  each  other  blows 

Over  their  bladders, 

But  neither  was  victorious. 

They  made  haste,  they  struck  each  other  on  their  belts, 

They  dealt  each  other  blows  behind  and  before, 

They  tried  tricks  of  every  kind  like  lions, 

Their  strong  knees  were  loosened, 

But  neither  was  victorious. 

They  fought  like  wolves, 

They  butted  like  oxen, 

And  then  Khongor  trod  beneath  himself 

The  lion-like  warrior,  Arsalangin-batyr.2 

This  is  a  fight  as  men  feel  it  in  their  bodies,  and  the  poet  uses 
the  audience's  experience  to  make  his  sensations  real.  We  feel 
the  strain  and  the  violence  of  the  struggle,  the  way  in  which  the 
warriors  put  their  bodies  to  work  until  Khongor  gets  his  man 
down.  This  kind  of  art  is  common  in  heroic  poetry,  since  it 
reflects  one  of  the  most  obvious  elements  of  battle,  the  sensation 

1    Godfrey  of  Bouillon  was  credited  with  cleaving  a  Turk  in  two  horizontally 
with  one  blow  at  Antioch  ;   cf.  Jenkins,  p.  104. 
z  Dzhangariada ,  p.  219. 

57 


HEROIC  POETRY 

of  physical  exertion  and  effort.  It  is  a  simpler  form  of  what 
Homer  does  when  he  tells  how  Ajax,  assailed  by  the  advancing 
Trojans,  finds  his  shoulder  wearied  by  the  weight  of  his  great 
shield  and  sweats  and  is  short  of  breath.1  Even  heroes  have 
moments  when  their  bodies  are  unable  to  endure  the  strain  put 
upon  them,  and  then  the  poet  recounts  the  symptoms  of  their 
exhaustion,  and  by  this  means  presents  the  dramatic  implications 
of  the  situation. 

When  a  fight  is  conducted  not  by  two  antagonists  but  by  a 
number  of  heroes,  who  are  all  in  their  way  equally  important,  the 
drama  of  battle  is  more  varied  and  tends  to  be  more  confused. 
Our  attention  is  turned  to  a  general  scene  of  violence  and  effort, 
of  rough-and-tumble,  of  movements  so  rapid  that  the  poet  cannot 
record  them  all  correctly  and  relies  on  a  general  impression  of 
noise  and  exertion.  For  Homer,  with  his  selective  taste  and  his 
interest  in  individual  achievement,  such  scenes  are  of  no  interest, 
but  other  poets  enjoy  them  without  abating  their  aristocratic 
exclusiveness.  When  Orozbakov  tells  how  the  Kara-Kirghiz  en- 
gage the  Chinese  in  battle,  he  confines  his  story  to  Manas'  forty 
great  warriors,  but  for  these  he  creates  a  scene  of  general 
destruction : 

The  forty  warriors  rushed  to  the  fight, 

Began  the  fight  against  the  heathen. 

They  came  in  a  flood  then, 

They  were  covered  in  blood. 

They  scattered  cries  here, 

They  brandished  their  pikes  here. 

The  face  of  the  earth  was  covered  with  blood. 

The  face  of  the  sky  was  covered  with  dust. 

Whoever  witnessed  the  struggle, 

Was  robbed  of  his  reason  then. 

The  earth  rose  up  on  its  haunches. 

Everything  in  the  world  then 

Was  inside-out  and  upside-down. 

Everything  that  lives  on  the  earth 

Was  unrecognisable  then. 

Regretting  not  that  they  had  begun  to  fight, 

Thousands  perished  here  ; 

Many  the  khans  that  fell  here, 

Red  blood  flowed  in  a  river, 

Battle-horses  died  here, 

Warriors  died  here, 

Horsemen  were  thrown  down  here  ; 

If  horses  were  lost  here, 

Foot-soldiers  were  struck  down  here.2 

1   //.  xvi,  1 02  if.  2  Manas,  p.  335. 

58 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

This  is  a  courageous  attempt  to  describe  a  general  encounter,  and 
in  its  own  way  it  succeeds.  But  on  the  whole  such  scenes  are 
rare  in  heroic  poetry  because  in  their  very  nature  they  are  bound 
to  exclude  any  record  of  individual  achievement.  Nor  is  Oroz- 
bakov  content  to  make  this  his  final  crisis.  From  it  he  moves  to 
a  series  of  personal  hand-to-hand  fights  in  which  various  warriors 
show  their  worth.  Such  a  scene  is  no  more  than  a  preliminary 
to  his  essential  task  of  showing  how  the  great  heroes  behave  in 
battle. 

A  fight  may  also  demand  considerable  qualities  of  character, 
notably  the  ability  to  make  rapid  decisions  in  a  crisis.  Then  the 
poetry  celebrates  the  speed  of  the  decision  and  the  passionate 
force  which  prompts  it  and  puts  it  into  action.  We  cannot  but 
admire  a  hero  who  turns  a  threatening  situation  to  victory  by 
taking  the  boldest  possible  course  in  dealing  with  it.  So  in  The 
Stealing  of  the  Mare,  when  Abu  Zeyd  finds  himself  pursued  by  a 
host  of  enemies,  he  makes  his  heroic  decision  and  at  once  turns 
and  attacks  them  : 

And  I  turned  my  mare  and  sprang,  like  a  lion  in  the  seizing, 
And  I  pressed  her  flank  with  my  heel  and  sent  her  flying  forward, 
And  I  charged  home  on  their  ranks,  nor  thought  of  wound  nor  danger, 
And  I  smote  them  with  my  sword  till  the  air  shone  with  smiting, 
And  I  met  them  once  or  twice  with  stark  blows  homeward  driven.1 

Because  Abu  Zeyd  has  made  up  his  mind  to  act  in  this  fashion,  he 
defeats  his  attackers,  and  we  feel  that  he  deserves  his  triumph, 
because  he  has  faced  the  risk  so  decisively.  In  Finnsburh  Hnaef, 
alone  with  a  few  companions  in  a  great  hall,  makes  a  similar 
decision.  Someone  sees  a  reflection  of  light  and  asks  if  the  horns 
of  the  hall  are  aflame,  but  Hnaef  knows  that  the  light  shines  from 
the  weapons  of  approaching  enemies,  immediately  grasps  the 
situation,  and  makes  his  choice  to  fight : 

"  This  nor  dawneth  from  the  east,      nor  here  any  dragon  fiieth, 

Nor  here  on  this  hall      are  the  horns  burning  ; 

But  the  Boar  forth  bear  they,      birds  are  singing, 

Clattereth  the  grey-sark,      clasheth  the  war- wood, 

Shield  to  shield  answereth.      Now  shineth  this  moon 

Waxing  under  the  welkin  ;      now  arise  woeful  deeds 

Which  battle  against  this  people      will  bring  to  pass. 

But  awaken  ye  now,      warriors  mine, 

Take  hold  of  your  shields,      as  heroes  shape  you, 

Fight  in  the  fore-front,      be  firm  in  courage."  2 

Like  Abu  Zeyd,  Hnaef  makes  his  courageous  decision  and  is 
rewarded  by  success,  but  we  do  not  know  this  when  he  makes  it, 

1   Blunt,  ii,  pp.  183-4.  2  Finnsburh,  3-12. 

59 


HEROIC  POETRY 

and  what  matters  is  his  temper,  which  sees  immediately  what  is 
afoot  and  takes  bold  steps  to  counter  it.  We  are  not  only  thrilled 
by  the  apparently  desperate  situation  but  roused  to  admiration 
for  the  spirit  in  which  it  is  faced. 

A  fighting  man  is  of  little  account  unless  he  knows  his  craft 
and  is  able  not  merely  to  handle  his  weapons  with  a  strong  arm 
and  a  sure  eye  but  to  act  at  the  right  moment  in  the  right  way. 
If  he  can  do  this,  he  wins  admiration,  as  when  in  Roland  the 
heroes  appreciate  their  own  and  each  other's  strokes  with  such 
comments  as,  "  A  baron's  stroke  in  truth  "  or  "  Great  prowess 
in  that  thrust  "  or  "  Good  baronage  indeed  "  or  "  He  strikes  well, 
our  warrant  'V  To  justify  such  comments  the  poet  tells  of 
prodigious  feats  of  arms  against  the  Saracens.  Though  the 
Homeric  warriors  are  less  lavish  than  those  of  Roland  in  praise 
for  each  other's  blows,  the  Iliad  describes  almost  every  conceivable 
kind  of  blow  and  is  precise  in  its  account  of  them,  as  when  Hector 
with  a  blow  of  his  sword  slices  Ajax's  spear  in  two,  or  Achilles 
strikes  Hippodamas  in  the  small  of  the  back  as  he  runs  away,  or 
Teucer  hits  Gorgythion  with  an  arrow  in  his  breast  with  the 
result  that  he  droops  "  like  a  poppy  ".2  These  are  relatively 
minor  episodes,  which  show  how  seriously  the  poet  treats  any 
element  in  the  art  of  war,  but  when  it  comes  to  great  encounters 
between  eminent  heroes,  there  is  a  natural  tendency  to  make  the 
story  even  more  precise  and  realistic.  Achilles'  fight  with  Hector, 
despite  its  foregone  conclusion,  is  treated  with  great  care  and 
detail.  So  too  in  other  poems  like  the  Kalmuck  and  Kara- 
Kirghiz,  the  poets  delight  to  tell  exactly  what  happens  and  to 
show  how  well  matched  the  heroes  are.  In  Manas  the  fight 
between  the  Kara- Kirghiz  and  the  formidable  Mahdi-Khan 
presents  an  exciting  series  of  events,  since  he  rides  on  a  galloping 
buffalo  and  is  a  deadly  archer.3  The  various  heroes  take  him  on 
in  turn  without  success,  and  he  is  finally  defeated  only  by  a 
combined  attack  in  which  Manas  himself  and  the  great  Alaman 
Bet  take  part.  Behind  such  passages  lie  a  technical  knowledge  of 
fighting  and  a  delight  in  the  experienced  and  dexterous  use  of 
arms.  They  are  intended  for  audiences  who  know  of  the  subject 
and  like  to  hear  of  it. 

Heroic  poetry  develops  a  special  thrill  when  it  makes  heroes 
attempt  tasks  which  are  beyond  the  reach  of  nearly  all  other  men. 
On  such  occasions  we  admire  both  the  physical  endowment  which 
overcomes  fearful  obstacles  and  the  bold,  unflinching  spirit  which 

1  Roland,  1280,  1288,  1349,  1609.  2  //.  xvi,  114;   xx,  402  ;  viii,  305. 

3  Manas,  p.  332  ff. 

60 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

carries  heroes  through  them.  An  Ossete  poem  gives  an  extreme 

example  of  such  a  situation.  The  Narts  are  unable  to  take  a 

fortress  until  Batradz  comes  to  their  rescue  and  resorts  to  a 
remarkable  stratagem : 

Batradz  gives  orders  to  the  warrior  Narts  : 

"  Bind  me  with  a  hawser  to  an  arrow, 

Shoot  me  with  the  arrow  to  the  strong  fortress  !  " 

The  Narts  were  amazed  :   of  what  is  he  thinking  ? 

But  to  do  what  he  told  them,  they  all  bound  him ; 

As  he  commanded,  so  did  they  do  it. 

"  Now  lay  the  arrow  on  the  bow, 

Stretch  the  string  to  its  full  extent, 

And  send  the  arrow  flying  to  the  Khyzovsk  fortress." 

As  he  commanded,  so  did  they  do  it. 

He  stretched  out  his  legs  and  his  arms  at  length  — 

Batradz  flew  to  the  Khyzovsk  fortress, 

He  pierced  the  wall  and  cut  a  hole.1 

This  is  a  strange  story  and  not  very  easy  to  visualise,  but  we  can 
appreciate  the  spirit  in  which  Batradz  sets  out  to  solve  a  difficult 
problem,  and  the  self-confidence  which  carries  him  through  it. 
In  an  exaggerated  way  this  poem  shows  the  kind  of  thing  which 
heroes  sometimes  do  in  asserting  their  heroic  worth.  They  would 
not  attempt  such  tasks  if  their  physical  prowess  were  not  very 
unusual,  and  Batradz  certainly  deserves  the  epithet  of  "  steel- 
breasted  "  which  the  poets  give  him.  Yet  what  Batradz  does, 
and  the  effect  which  it  makes  on  us,  are  in  principle  similar  to 
much  that  other  heroes  do  in  other  places.  The  combination  of 
courage,  confidence,  and  physical  powers  is  essential  to  the  hero's 
equipment  and,  when  he  puts  it  into  action,  we  admire  the  way 
in  which  it  works.  The  purely  physical  thrill  is  hardly  ever 
lacking,  but  it  is  strengthened  by  our  appreciation  of  moral  and 
even  of  intellectual  qualities. 

The  effects  which  heroic  poets  get  from  battle  are  similar  to 
what  they  get  from  almost  any  kind  of  action  and  are  essential 
to  their  art.  But  these  effects  have  a  special  significance  through 
their  connection  with  the  heroic  cult  of  honour.  Honour  is 
central  to  a  hero's  being,  and,  if  it  is  questioned  or  assailed  or 
insulted,  he  has  to  assert  himself,  since  he  would  be  untrue  to  his 
standards  if  he  failed  to  do  anything  to  prove  his  worth.  This 
assumption  lies  behind  most  heroic  poetry  and  gives  to  it  its 
special  atmosphere  and  outlook.  The  assertion  of  honour  need 
not  always  be  fierce  and  bloodthirsty ;  it  may  be  equally  effective 
if  it  is  quiet.  For  instance,  when  Ilya  of  Murom  feels  insulted 

1  Dynnik,  p.  65. 

61 


HEROIC  POETRY 

because  Prince  Vladimir  does  not  invite  him  to  a  feast,  he  shows 
his  wrath  by  damaging  the  churches  of  Kiev,  and  so  successful 
is  he  that  Vladimir  has  no  choice  but  to  invite  him  after  all.  His 
arrival  shows  that  he  has  triumphed  : 

There  Vladimir,  prince  of  royal  Kiev, 

With  the  Princess  Apraxya, 

Went  up  to  the  old  Cossack,  Ilya  of  Murom  ; 

They  took  him  by  his  white  hands, 

They  addressed  him  in  the  following  words  : 

"  Ah,  you  old  Cossack,  Ilya  of  Murom  ! 

Your  seat  was  indeed  the  humblest  of  all, 

But  now  your  seat  is  the  highest  of  all  at  the  table  ! 

Seat  yourself  at  the  table  of  oak."  l 

Honour  is  satisfied,  and  all  is  well,  and  we  cannot  but  be  pleased 
that  Ilyajs  outrageous  behaviour  has  ended  so  happily.  So  some- 
what more  grimly  in  Manas,  when  the  khans  plot  against  Manas, 
he  humiliates  them  by  making  them  drunk  and  then  imposes  his 
will  upon~  them.  Nor  does  he  try  to  conceal  his  contemptuous 
satisfaction  : 

He  looked  as  the  midnight  looks, 

He  was  vexed  like  an  ugly  day ; 

He  licked  his  lips  like  a  scabbard, 

His  cheeks  were  strained 

And  armoured  with  moustaches, 

Which  were  like  a  sabre  from  Bokhara. 

Each  of  those  moustaches 

Could  almost  vie 

With  a  pike  held  by  a  guardsman  ; 

Darkness  covered  his  temples. 

The  lion  shook  his  locks  of  hair  ; 

So  abundantly  they  grew 

That  they  would  vie  with  wool. 

Five  hairy  stockings 

Could  be  made  out  of  them.2 

This  is  Manas  in  his  moment  of  triumph,  and  the  bold,  primitive 
imagery  catches  something  of  his  heroic  bearing.  This  is  not  a 
genial  triumph  like  Ilya's,  but  it  is  no  less  complete  and  satisfying. 
The  satisfaction  of  honour  may  raise  deeper  questions  than 
this,  and  take  more  dramatic  forms.  In  the  last  resort  a  hero's 
honour  means  more  to  him  than  anything  else,  and,  if  it  comes  to 
a  choice  between  it  and  no  matter  what  else,  he  is  almost  bound 
to  follow  honour.  The  issue  is  raised  with  great  power  in  Gil- 
garnish.  Gilgamish  and  his  comrade,  Enkidu,  have  enraged  the 

1  Gilferding,  ii,  p.  40 ;   Chadwick,  R.H.P.  p.  64. 
2  Manas,  p.  66  ff. 

62 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

gods  by  the  enormity  of  their  prowess,  and  the  gods  decide  on 
their  death.  They  send  a  fearful  bull  to  kill  them,  but  the  heroes 
destroy  it.  As  they  offer  its  body  in  sacrifice,  the  goddess  Ishtar, 
whose  amorous  advances  Gilgamish  has  rejected  with  contumely, 
takes  the  stage  : 

Ishtar  mounted  the  ramparts  of  high- walled  Erech, 

She  went  up  to  the  roof-top, 

And  gave  voice  to  her  wailing  : 

"  Woe  unto  Gilgamish,  woe  unto  him 

Who  by  killing  the  heavenly  bull  has  made  me  lament/* 

When  Enkidu  heard  the  shrieks  of  Ishtar, 

He  wrenched  its  member  from  the  bull 

And  tossed  it  before  her  : 

"  If  I  could  only  have  reached  thee, 

I  would  have  served  thee  in  the  same  way, 

I  would  have  dangled  its  guts  on  thy  flanks  ". 

Ishtar  assembled  the  temple-girls,  the  harlots  ; 

Over  the  bull's  member  she  made  lamentation.1 

Honour  can  scarcely  ask  for  more  than  this.  Gilgamish  despises 
Ishtar  who  has  first  made  love  to  him  and  then  conspired  to  kill 
him.  He  treats  her  with  unutterable  contempt  in  a  most  offensive 
way,  which  is  all  the  worse  since  it  has  a  coarse  appropriateness 
for  a  goddess  of  her  kind.  We  cannot  but  share  the  hero's  almost 
frenzied  delight  as  he  gives  her  what  she  deserves. 

Often  enough,  honour  must  be  satisfied  by  bloodshed,  since  the 
hero  feels  that  he  has  been  too  deeply  insulted  for  forgiveness  or 
appeasement  to  be  possible,  and  can  hardly  continue  to  exist 
unless  he  destroys  those  who  have  wounded  him  in  the  centre  of 
his  being.  This  is  what  Odysseus  feels  about  the  Suitors  who  have 
harried  his  wife  and  impoverished  his  home.  So  when  at  last  he 
begins  to  wreak  his  vengeance  on  them,  his  spirit  is  triumphant : 

Then  did  he  strip  off  his  beggarly  rags,  the  resourceful  Odysseus, 
And  on  the  broad  raised  platform  he  jumped  with  his  bow  and  his 

quiver 

Loaded  with  arrows  fast-flying,  and  these  he  emptied  before  him 
Down  on  the  ground  at  his  feet,  and  thus  did  he  speak  to  the  Suitors  : 
"  Now  this  impossible  task  has  been  done,  this  labour  accomplished. 
Now  I  shall  aim  at  a  different  mark  yet  aimed  at  by  no  man, 
And  I  shall  see  if  Apollo  will  grant  my  prayer  to  strike  it."  2 

Then  the  slaughter  begins  with  the  death  of  Antinous.  If  any  of 
the  Suitors  have  had  any  doubts  that  this  is  Odysseus,  they  now 
know  that  it  is,  and  he  rubs  it  in  when  he  mocks  them  for  thinking 
that  he  would  never  return  and  that  they  would  be  able  to  devour 

1   Gilgamish,  vi,  i,  157-69.  2   Od.  xxii,  1-7. 

63 


HEROIC  POETRY 

his  substance,  sleep  with  his  serving- women,  and  pay  court  to  his 
wife.1  He  proclaims  that  he  will  now  exact  vengeance  for  all  this. 
Homer  makes  little  attempt  to  win  sympathy  or  even  pity  for  the 
Suitors ;  they  have  behaved  without  shame  and  deserve  death. 
The  mood  of  Odysseus'  triumph  is  that  of  a  man  whose  honour 
has  been  gravely  wounded  and  who  at  last  has  a  chance  to  get 
satisfaction  for  it.  Homer  concentrates  on  this,  and  the  fall  of 
each  Suitor  is  a  stage  in  the  process.  The  slaughter  is  no  doubt 
brutal,  and  some  might  think  that  the  Suitors  get  more  than  they 
deserve,  but  that  is  not  Homer's  view.  He  is  concerned  with  his 
hero's  wounded  honour  which  only  bloodshed  can  satisfy. 

The  desire  to  appease  honour  may  take  more  passionate  forms 
than  this.  Odysseus,  whose  vengeance  has  been  long  delayed  and 
carefully  plotted,  acts  almost  on  a  point  of  principle,  but  other 
heroes  are  so  carried  away  that  they  act  in  flaming  anger.  When 
Patroclus  is  killed  by  Hector,  Achilles  conceives  a  bloodthirsty 
desire  for  vengeance.  He  cannot  endure  the  thought  that  he, 
the  greatest  of  all  warriors,  should  be  robbed  of  his  friend  by 
Hector.  This  passion  sweeps  him  along  until  he  meets  Hector 
and  kills  him.  Until  he  has  done  this,  he  spares  no  one,  but 
attacks  even  the  river-god  Scamander  and  shows  no  mercy  to 
Priam's  young  son,  Lycaon,  whom  in  the  past  he  captured  and 
sold  into  slavery.  Now  the  sight  of  him  enrages  Achilles,  who 
thinks  that  the  dead  are  rising  against  him.  Lycaon  is  unarmed 
and  begs  for  his  life,  but  Achilles  is  adamant : 

"  Idiot,  offer  me  not  any  ransom,  nor  speak  to  me  of  it ! 

Once  on  a  time  or  ever  his  doom-day  came  to  Patroclus, 

In  those  days  it  was  dearer  than  now  to  my  heart  to  show  mercy 

Unto  the  Trojans,  and  many  I  captured  or  sold  into  ransom. 

But  now  none  shall  escape  from  death,  whom  god  may  deliver 

Into  my  hands  even  here  by  the  walls  of  Ilion's  city, 

And  of  all  Trojans  the  least  shall  I  spare  the  children  of  Priam."  2 

Achilles  then  kills  Lycaon  and  throws  his  body  into  the  Scamander. 
Homer  shows  a  true  imaginative  insight  in  allowing  nothing  to 
stand  between  heroic  honour  and  its  satisfaction  in  blood.  Since 
Achilles  is  determined  to  kill  Trojans  in  return  for  the  death  of 
Patroclus,  it  is  futile  for  boys  like  Lycaon  to  beg  mercy  from  him. 

The  use  which  heroic  poetry  makes  of  honour  means  that 
sooner  or  later  it  demands  a  treatment  of  human  relations. 
Though  the  hero  may  wish  to  be  self-sufficient  and  in  some  cases 
succeed,  he  has  none  the  less  to  play  his  part  among  other  men 
and  women.  He  is,  despite  all  his  pre-eminence,  a  human  being 

1   Od.  xxii,  35  ff.  2  //.  xxi,  99-105. 

64 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

and  may  even  possess  human  affections  in  an  advanced  degree. 
He  cannot  live  entirely  for  himself,  and  needs  a  companion  to 
whom  he  can  unburden  his  heart  and  whom  he  can  make  the 
partner  of  his  ambitions.  That  is  why  heroic  poetry  has  its  great 
pairs  of  gifted  friends,  like  Achilles  and  Patroclus,  Roland  and 
Oliver,  Gilgamish  and  Enkidu,  the  Uzbek  Alpamys  and  Kara- 
dzhan,  the  Armenian  brothers  Sanasar  and  Bagdasar.  When  the 
hero  forms  a  friendship  with  a  man  who  is  only  less  heroic  than 
himself,  he  forms  a  partnership  of  a  special  kind.  The  participants 
share  both  dangers  and  glory,  and  the  honour  of  one  is  the  honour 
of  the  other.  Such  friendships  are  based  on  mutual  respect,  and 
each  partner  expects  and  receives  the  utmost  from  the  other.  It 
is  therefore  appropriate  that  the  great  friendship  of  Gilgamish  and 
Enkidu  should  begin  with  a  tremendous  fight  between  them,  since 
this  shows  each  what  the  other  is  worth  and  inspires  mutual 
devotion.  A  hero's  love  for  his  friend  is  different  from  his  love 
for  his  wife  or  his  family,  since  it  is  between  equals  and  founded 
on  an  identity  of  ideals  and  interests.  A  hero  will  speak  to  his 
friend  with  a  frankness  which  he  will  not  use  to  his  wife,  and 
consult  him  on  matters  which  he  would  never  discuss  with  her. 

In  such  an  alliance  there  is  a  senior  partner,  like  Achilles  or 
Gilgamish  or  Roland  or  Alpamys  or  Sanasar,  and  a  junior  partner 
like  Patroclus  or  Enkidu  or  Oliver  or  Karadzhan  or  Bagdasar. 
The  senior  normally  makes  proposals  and  expects  them  to  be 
carried  out,  but  the  junior  may  offer  criticisms  and  suggestions 
and  is  by  no  means  bound  to  unquestioning  subservience.  In  the 
end  agreement  is  reached,  even  if  one  partner  doubts  its  wisdom. 
When  Gilgamish  forms  his  plan  for  destroying  the  ogre  Humbaba, 
Enkidu  has  serious  doubts,  but  Gilgamish  overrules  with  a  heroic 
appeal : 

"  Whom,  my  friend,  does  death  not  conquer  ? 

A  god,  truly,  lives  for  ever  in  the  daylight, 

But  the  days  of  mortals  are  numbered. 

All  that  they  do  is  but  wind. 

But  now  that  thou  art  afraid  of  death, 

Thy  courage  giveth  no  substance  to  thee. 

I  will  be  thy  vanguard."  l 

To  this  Enkidu  submits,  and  Humbaba  is  destroyed  by  their 
combined  attack.  A  more  serious  case  of  disagreement  comes  in 
Roland  over  the  blowing  of  the  horn.  When  he  sees  the  Saracens 
approaching,  Oliver  calls  on  Roland  to  blow  his  horn  and  summon 
Charlemagne  to  their  aid.  He  repeats  the  request  three  times, 
1  Gilgamish,  in,  iv,  5-11. 

65 


HEROIC  POETRY 

and  three  times  Roland  refuses.1  What  is  for  Oliver  a  wise 
precaution  is  impossible  for  Roland  on  a  point  of  honour.  Since 
he  has  promised  to  guard  the  army's  rear,  he  cannot  ask  for  help ; 
for  that  would  be  to  admit  that  the  task  is  beyond  his  powers. 
Oliver  is  not  convinced  by  his  reasoning  but  gives  in  unwillingly 
as  to  a  superior.  Later  the  irony  of  events  reverses  the  situation. 
Roland  now,  seeing  that  their  fight  is  against  hopeless  odds, 
wishes  to  blow  the  horn  and  summon  Charlemagne  to  their  aid, 
but  this  time  Oliver  opposes  it  on  the  grounds  that  the  Emperor 
would  never  forgive  them.2  His  opposition  is  strong  and  pas- 
sionate, and  the  two  friends  are  near  to  quarrelling ;  but  again 
Roland  has  his  way,  and  blows  the  horn.  Of  course  it  is  too  late, 
and  both  heroes  are  dead  before  Charlemagne  arrives.  It  might 
be  argued  that  on  both  occasions  Roland  is  wrong  and  Oliver 
right,  but  the  poetry  comes  from  the  tension  which  arises  when 
the  two  friends  disagree  on  a  fundamental  point  of  honour. 

The  Iliad  presents  a  case  of  agreement  between  friends  which 
is  no  less  tragic  than  any  disagreement.  When  Achilles  plans  to 
humiliate  the  Achaeans  by  allowing  them  to  be  defeated  and 
largely  succeeds,  his  friend,  Patroclus,  is  deeply  distressed.  He 
chides  Achilles  for  his  hardness  of  heart  and  asks  for  leave  to  go 
to  battle  to  help  the  distressed  Achaeans.3  He  acts  with  perfect 
justice.  He  has  stood  loyally  by  Achilles  until  his  plan  should 
succeed,  and  now  that  the  plan  has  succeeded,  he  does  not  wish 
it  to  go  too  far.  Achilles  allows  him  to  do  what  he  wishes.  No 
doubt  he  himself  has  begun  to  see  that  he  has  gone  far  enough, 
but  his  pride  does  not  yet  allow  him  to  take  part  in  the  battle 
and  reverse  the  situation.  Instead  he  lends  Patroclus  his  armour 
and  sends  him  out.  The  result  is  that  Patroclus  is  killed  and 
Achilles  bitterly  regrets  his  decision.  When  he  hears  the  news  of 
Patroclus'  death,  he  feels  that  he  is  responsible  for  it  and  that,  if 
he  had  been  present,  he  might  have  saved  him.4  For  this  sense  of 
failure  he  must  find  an  outlet,  and  he  finds  it  in  his  desire  to 
revenge  the  death  of  Patroclus  on  Hector.  In  this  way  he  hopes 
to  redeem  his  own  honour  and  that  of  his  fallen  friend.  The 
poetry  lies  in  the  powerful  human  emotions  which  create  such  a 
situation  and  give  significance  to  it. 

A  friendship  of  this  kind  is  founded  on  deep  affection.  When 
Achilles  hears  of  Patroclus'  death,  he  pours  ashes  on  his  head  and 
face  and  garments  and  lies  in  the  dust  tearing  his  hair.  His 
passionate,  uncontrolled  nature  responds  with  terrible  force  to 

1  Roland,  1051  ff.  *  Ibid.  1702  ff. 

3  //.  xvi,  21  ff.  4  Ibid,  xviii,  82  and  100. 

66 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

the  feeling  of  loss,  and  indeed  something  essential  to  his  whole 
being  has  been  taken  from  him.  He  has  to  make  a  fresh  start 
without  an  element  in  his  life  which  he  has  taken  for  granted  and 
valued  highly.  Gilgamish  is  affected  in  a  similar  way  by  the  death 
of  Enkidu.  Though  he  is  less  directly  to  blame  for  this  than 
Achilles  is  for  the  death  of  Patroclus,  he  is  not  entirely  without 
responsibility,  since  the  gods  kill  Enkidu  for  sharing  the  activities 
of  Gilgamish.  When  Enkidu  lies  dead,  Gilgamish  laments  over 
him  : 

"  Hearken  to  me,  Elders,  to  me  shall  ye  listen. 

I  weep  for  my  comrade  Enkidu, 

I  cry  bitterly  like  a  wailing  woman. 

My  grip  is  slackened  on  the  axe  at  my  thigh, 

The  sword  on  my  belt  is  removed  from  my  sight. 

My  festal  attire  gives  no  pleasure  to  me, 

Sorrow  assails  me  and  casts  me  down  in  affliction.*'  l 

He  recalls  what  he  and  Enkidu  did  together  and  walks  up  and 
down  in  front  of  the  dead  body,  tearing  his  hair.  Then,  just  as 
Achilles  decides  that  he  must  do  proper  honour  to  his  dead  friend, 
by  giving  him  a  magnificent  funeral,  so  Gilgamish  promises  to  do 
something  of  the  same  kind  for  Enkidu  : 

"  I  Gilgamish,  thy  friend  and  thy  brother, 

Will  give  thee  a  great  couch  to  lie  upon, 

Will  give  thee  a  splendid  couch  to  lie  upon, 

Will  set  thee  on  a  great  throne  at  my  left  hand, 

That  the  lords  of  Death  may  kiss  thy  feet ; 

I  will  make  the  people  of  Erech  lament  thee, 

I  will  make  them  mourn  for  thee, 

And  force  maidens  and  warriors  to  thy  service. 

For  thy  sake  I  will  make  my  body  bear  stains  ; 

I  will  put  on  a  lion's  skin  and  range  over  the  desert."  2 

The  splendid  rite  is  the  last  tribute  which  the  hero  can  pay  to  his 
dead  comrade,  and  he  stints  nothing  in  it.  Such  an  end  is  needed 
if  only  to  pay  due  honour  to  what  Gilgamish  and  Enkidu  have 
done  together. 

Such  friendships  usually  last  till  death,  but  sometimes  they 
are  endangered  by  both  partners  wishing  for  something  which 
cannot  be  shared  and  each  feeling  that  its  acquisition  concerns  his 
honour.  The  Armenian  brothers,  Sanasar  and  Bagdasar,  present 
a  noble  example  of  heroic  affection  and  identity  of  aims  pursued 
through  many  severe  ordeals,  but  unfortunately  they  both  wish 
to  win  the  same  woman,  and  for  this  reason  they  fight.  They  are 
not  in  love  with  her,  since  neither  has  seen  her,  and  indeed  the 

1  Gilgamish,  vm,  ii,  1-8.  2  Ibid.  49-111,  7. 

67 


HEROIC  POETRY 

whole  quarrel  is  based  on  a  misunderstanding,  since  the  message 
which  she  sends  to  Sanasar  comes  by  mistake  to  Bagdasar,  who 
naturally  feels  insulted  when  his  brother  claims  priority.  Honour 
demands  that  they  should  fight  it  out,  and,  being  heroes,  they  do 
so  with  full  passion  and  strength.  The  struggle  lasts  for  one 
whole  day  without  result,  is  continued  on  the  next  day,  and  then 
Sanasar,  who  is  slightly  the  more  powerful  of  the  two,  unhorses 
his  brother.  At  this  point  his  honour  is  satisfied,  but,  more  than 
this,  his  human  feelings  assert  themselves  and  he  at  once  regrets 
what  he  has  done  : 

"  What  have  I  done  !    In  my  strength 

I  did  not  reckon  my  hand's  cunning  ! 

I  have  struck,  I  have  killed  my  brother  !  " 

Fortunately  Bagdasar  is  not  dead.  Sanasar  carries  him  to  their 
home  and  weeps  over  him  until  he  regains  consciousness,  and  the 
whole  cause  of  the  quarrel  is  cleared  up.  Bagdasar  not  only 
forgives  his  brother  but  acknowledges  his  own  inferiority : 

"  Brother,  I  did  not  see,  alas  ! 

That  you  are  so  much  stronger  than  I ! 

But  for  your  sake  I  am  ready  to  die. 

Let  us  make  peace.    You  are  bolder  than  I. 

It  is  finished.    I  will  not  raise  a  hand  against  you. 

I  am  your  younger  brother,  you  are  my  elder. 

All  that  you  bid  me  I  will  accomplish. 

I  will  not  thwart  you,  brother. 

Arise,  go,  take  that  maiden,  win  her  for  yourself."  l 

The  result  is  that  both  brothers  go  off  in  search  of  the  maiden, 
and,  after  passing  through  many  dangers  together,  secure  her  for 
Sanasar.  In  the  end  their  sense  of  individual  honour  is  tran- 
scen  led  by  their  affection  for  one  another  and  satisfied  by  the  lure 
of  a  i  •  w  and  dangerous  quest. 

In  c  ntrast  to  a  hero's  friends  we  may  consider  his  enemies 
and  the  [  jets'  treatment  of  them.  Here  on  the  whole  it  is  perhaps 
surprising  to  find  that  most  heroes  dislike  and  despise  those  whom 
they  oppose  in  war.  For  this  there  is  sometimes  a  religious  reason, 
as  when  the  Christians  of  Roland  despise  the  Saracens,  or  the 
Kara-Kirghiz  and  Uzbeks  the  Kalmucks,  or  the  Serbs  the  Turks. 
In  such  cases  part  of  the  heroes'  strength  lies  in  their  sense  of  a 
superiority  which  God  has  granted  to  them  and  still  favours.  In 
different  ways  the  inferiority  of  the  enemy  is  stressed  to  make  them 
less  admirable,  as  Roland  stresses  the  treachery  and  uncontrolled 
passions  of  the  Saracens,  or  Manas  the  craft  and  magic  of  the 

1  David  Sasunskiiy  p.  66  ff. 

68 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

Chinese,  or  the  poems  on  Marko  the  brutality  of  the  Turks. 
There  is  no  question  of  men  meeting  each  other  on  equal  terms 
in  valiant  rivalry ;  it  is  a  question  of  right  pitted  against  wrong 
and  striving  earnestly  to  win.  Such  circumstances  hardly  permit 
courtesies  on  the  battlefield  or  much  consideration  for  the  con- 
quered and  the  captured.  Even  so  honour  forbids  too  great 
brutality  against  a  defeated  foe,  and  while  Charlemagne  is 
content  with  baptising  Saracens,  so  the  Kara-Kirghiz,  once  the 
victory  is  won,  are  content  with  loot  and  do  not  indulge  in  indis- 
criminate slaughter.  Even  though  heroes  in  these  cases  are 
inspired  by  an  exclusive  religion,  they  remain  heroic  within  certain 
fixed  limits.  If  Roland  fails  to  reflect  that  equality  between 
antagonists,  with  its  mutual  respect  and  its  exchanges  of  courtesies, 
which  existed  between  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion  and  Saladin,  it 
still  maintains  certain  rules  of  behaviour  and  allows  some  ele- 
mentary human  rights  to  the  conquered,  even  if  they  are  heathen, 
and  in  this  respect  the  Mohammedan  and  Buddhist  poems  of  the 
Tatars  and  Mongols  are  not  fundamentally  different  from  it. 

If  religion  plays  a  less  dominant  part  in  a  heroic  outlook, 
there  is  a  possibility  that  the  two  sides  in  a  war  may  treat  each 
other  with  considerably  more  ease  and  equality.  In  the  Iliad  the 
Achaeans  and  the  Trojans  fight  desperately  on  the  battlefield,  but 
there  are  no  atrocities  and  very  few  outbursts  of  abuse.  At  times, 
as  when  Glaucus  and  Diomedes  meet,  friendly  relations  are 
established  and  gifts  exchanged,  and  furious  though  Achilles' 
anger  is  against  the  whole  breed  of  Priam,  he  treats  the  old  man 
himself  with  great  ceremony  and  consideration  when  he  comes  to 
ransom  the  body  of  Hector.  Of  course  in  this  war,  fought  for  a 
man's  wife,  many  of  the  chief  warriors  take  part  just  to  win 
honour  through  prowess,  and  have  no  reason  to  hate  or  despise 
the  other  side,  which  indeed  resembles  theirs  very  closely  in  its 
religion  and  way  of  life.  Perhaps  something  of  the  same  kind 
existed  in  the  old  Germanic  poems  about  war,  and  for  the  same 
reason.  In  The  Battle  of  the  Goths  and  the  Huns  the  fight  is  indeed 
fearful,  but  there  is  no  indication  of  sharp  practice,  and  Humli, 
the  king  of  the  Huns,  insists  on  observing  the  inviolability  of  the 
messenger  sent  by  the  Goths.  In  Hildebrand  the  fight  between 
father  and  son  is  preceded  by  a  dignified  interchange  of  questions 
and  answers  about  lineage  and  antecedents.  Conversely,  when  the 
rules  of  heroic  conduct  are  broken,  as  they  are  at  Finnsburh,  it  is 
assumed  that  vengeance  must  be  taken.  The  Germanic  world, 
like  the  Homeric,  demands  a  strict  code  of  behaviour  between 
antagonists.  Of  course  the  rules  are  sometimes  broken  but  that  is 


HEROIC  POETRY 

not  to  be  lightly  forgiven  and  may  demand  a  hideous  vengeance.  In 
general,  however  bloodthirsty  and  fierce  war  may  be,  and  whatever 
fury  may  possess  its  exponents,  they  are  still  bound  by  a  certain 
code  which  insists  that  a  hero's  opponents  are  ultimately  of  the 
same  breed  as  himself  and  that  he  should  treat  them  as  he  would 
wish  to  be  treated  himself. 

Exceptions  to  this  general  rule  occur  when  a  hero  feels  that 
some  enemy  has  struck  him  in  his  self-respect  or  insulted  his 
heroic  pride.  That  is  why  Achilles  has  so  devouring  a  hatred  for 
Hector,  who  in  killing  Patroclus  has  dealt  Achilles  an  unforgivable 
blow.  He  feels  that  his  life  has  been  ruined  and  the  consciousness 
that  he  might  have  saved  Patroclus  from  death  only  makes  his 
bitterness  greater.  His  wounded  pride  can  be  assuaged  only  by 
the  death  of  Hector,  and  when  he  has  killed  him,  he  still  feels 
unsatisfied  and  wishes  to  maltreat  his  body.  His  anger  ceases 
when  he  yields  to  Priam's  entreaties  and  gives  him  back  the  body 
of  Hector.  In  so  doing  he  regains  sanity  and  his  proper,  normal 
self.  An  even  more  deadly  hatred  can  be  seen  in  Atlamdl  when 
Guthrun  takes  vengeance  on  her  husband,  Atli,  because  he  has 
killed  her  brothers.  She  first  kills  their  children  and  serves  them 
up  to  him  to  eat.  Nor  is  this  enough  for  her ;  she  must  then  tell 
him  of  her  purpose  to  kill  him  : 

"  Still  more  would  I  seek      to  slay  thee  thyself, 

Enough  ill  comes  seldom      to  such  as  thou  art ; 

Thou  didst  folly  of  old,      such  that  no  one  shall  find 

In  the  whole  world  of  men      a  match  for  thy  madness. 

Now  this  that  of  late      we  learned  thou  hast  added, 

Great  evil  hast  grasped,      and  thine  own  death-feast  made."  ! 

Guthrun  differs  from  Achilles  in  acting  in  a  way  which  is  perhaps 
unavoidable  in  her  situation,  but  like  him  she  breaks  the  usual 
rules  because  her  honour  has  been  mortally  wounded  and  drives 
her  to  this  extremity. 

When  honour  turns  to  hatred  and  violence,  heroic  poetry  may 
develop  a  special  kind  of  horror.  Nor  is  this  alien  to  its  nature. 
The  life  of  war  entails  bloodshed  and  destruction,  and  the  poet 
necessarily  tells  of  it,  but  when  it  passes  the  mean,  it  is  only 
another  sign  that  the  heroic  life  is  full  of  perils  and  that  the  hero 
must  face  this  as  well  as  other  dangers.  In  countries  which  have 
suffered  from  Turkish  domination  the  poets  often  dwell  on  the 
hideous  actions  of  the  persecuting  masters,  and  tell  with  brutal 
frankness  of  fearful  tortures  and  mutilations.  Sometimes  these 
may  be  simple  occasions  for  vengeful  delight,  when  the  Turks 

1  Atlamdl,  81. 

70 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

turn  on  each  other,  as  they  do  in  the  Greek  poem  on  the  capture 
of  Gardiki  in  1812,  when  Ali  Pasha  punishes  disobedient  officers 
and  refuses  them  forgiveness  : 

"  Here,  take  these  men,  and  drag  them  out  unto  the  lake's  broad 

margin  ; 

Come  take  stout  timbers  with  you  too,  of  stout  spikes  take  you  plenty. 
Off  with  you  !  nail  them  to  the  planks,  and  in  the  water  throw  them. 
There  let  them  swim  the  livelong  day,  the  long  day  let  them  row  there.'* l 

When  the  Turks  vent  their  fiendish  ingenuity  on  their  Greek 
victims,  the  situation  has  to  be  treated  more  seriously,  but  the 
poets  describe  it  with  the  same  fascinated  horror.  There  is  some- 
thing specially  blood-curdling  about  the  affectation  of  chivalrous 
respect  which  a  vizier  maintains  when  Kitzio  Andoni  is  brought 
bound  to  him  : 

"  Now  take  him  off  and  bind  him  fast  below  unto  the  plane-tree 

And  do  not  torture  him  at  all,  seeing  that  he's  a  hero  ; 

Only  take  hammers  up  and  smite  his  arms  and  legs  with  hammers, 

And  break  his  arms  and  break  his  legs  by  beating  them  with  hammers. 

For  he  has  slain  Albanians  and  even  Veli  Ghekas 

With  thirteen  of  his  followers  and  other  soldiers  also. 

So  torture  him  for  all  you  can  and  break  him  into  pieces."  2 

There  is  a  touch  of  patriotic  pride  in  the  way  in  which  the  Greek 
poet  tells  how  his  countryman  is  tortured  by  the  Turkish  vizier. 
Such  are  the  risks  which  klephts  take  in  opposing  their  infidel 
masters,  and  it  is  only  fair  to  recognise  them.  We  are  rightly 
struck  with  horror,  but  it  is  tempered  by  satisfaction  that  the 
Turks  act  in  character  and  that  the  efforts  to  defeat  them  are  all 
the  more  necessary  when  things  of  this  kind  happen. 

In  these  cases  the  horrors  arise  in  a  struggle  between  two 
peoples,  and  our  sympathies  are  all  on  one  side.  But  some  horrors 
are  not  so  clearly  cut  as  these  and  invite  more  mixed  feelings. 
Indeed  there  are  times  when  poets  indulge  in  horrors  almost  for 
their  own  sake  as  an  element  in  a  good  story,  or  at  least  as  a  means 
to  illustrate  the  straits  to  which  the  heroic  life  may  reduce  its 
participants.  On  such  occasions  moral  considerations  are  inevit- 
ably raised,  and  we  have  no  right  to  assume  that  the  poets  them- 
selves are  indifferent  to  them.  In  this  art  the  Norse  Elder  Edda 
shows  a  considerable  accomplishment.  In  several  poems  the 
crisis  comes  with  some  horrifying  event,  of  whose  significance  the 
poet  is  well  aware.  This  grim  temper  might  be  thought  to  be 
due  to  hard  conditions  of  life  in  Iceland  with  the  inevitable  sequel 
that  human  life  is  held  at  a  low  price,  and  it  is  easy  to  refer  it  to 

1   Passow,  ccxix.  2  Baggally,  p.  71. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

the  world  of  the  Vikings.  But  it  seems  to  be  older  than  that. 
Some  of  the  harshest  stories  go  back  to  the  Germanic  heroic  age, 
and  it  might  be  argued  that  the  Norsemen  preserved  an  original 
brutality  which  their  kinsmen  in  England  forgot.  Whatever  the 
explanation  may  be,  this  element  is  used  with  skill  and  power. 
The  stories  are  usually  taut  and  terse  and  relate  violent  events  in  a 
short  compass.  In  reducing  to  a  small  scale  the  garrulity  of  heroic 
poetry  the  Norse  bards  naturally  kept  the  most  exciting  incidents, 
and  it  was  inevitable  that  they  should  bring  a  violent  tale  to  a 
formidable  crisis.  The  result  is  a  use  of  horror  almost  without 
parallel  anywhere  else.  It  is  true  that  Greek  legends  contain 
horrifying  episodes  like  those  of  Tantalus  and  Atreus  and  Tereus, 
but  it  is  significant  that  Homer,  who  must  have  known  of  them, 
passes  them  by  in  silence.  But  in  Norse  poetry  such  stories 
persisted  from  its  earliest  to  its  latest  stages  and  are  almost  indis- 
pensable to  its  most  individual  effects.  Though  something  of 
the  same  kind  may  be  found  in  more  primitive  branches  of  heroic 
poetry,  we  may  doubt  whether  they  are  used  with  so  calculated 
a  deliberation  and  are  not  due  partly  to  some  insensibility  in  the 
poets. 

Such  horrors  may  do  no  more  than  emphasise  a  hero's  heroism 
and  show  that  in  the  most  appalling  and  fearful  circumstances  he 
does  not  abate  his  courage  or  his  style.  In  such  cases  the  ordeal 
through  which  a  great  man  passes  takes  a  peculiarly  painful  form, 
but  it  remains  an  ordeal  whose  purpose  is  to  reveal  in  their  true 
grandeur  his  bearing  and  conduct.  In  the  harsh  tales  of  Atli's 
slaughter  of  the  Sons  of  Gjuki  there  are  cases  of  this.  The  first  is 
when  Hogni's  heart  is  cut  out  of  him  when  he  is  still  alive.  In 
Atlamdl  the  poet  goes  out  of  his  way  to  praise  him  : 

Then  the  brave  one  they  seized  ;      to  the  warriors  bold 
No  chance  was  there  left      to  delay  his  fate  longer  ; 
Loud  did  Hogni  laugh,      all  the  sons  of  day  heard  him, 
So  valiant  he  was      that  well  he  could  suffer.1 

In  Atlakvitha  the  poet  feels  no  need  for  comment,  but  shows  with 
admiring  brevity  Hogni's  incredible  self-command  and  contempt 
for  pain  : 

Then  Hogni  laughed      when  they  cut  out  the  heart 
Of  the  living  helm-hammerer  ;      tears  he  had  not.2 

The  horror  of  this  episode  is  so  great  that  it  leaves  us  almost 
breathless,  but  none  the  less  we  are  filled  with  amazed  admiration 

1  Atlamdl,  61. 
2  Atlakvitha,  25.    The  "  helm-hammerer  "  is  of  course  Hogni. 

72 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

for  a  man  who  can  so  gaily  submit  himself  to  a  hideous  doom, 
A  somewhat  similar  sensation  is  aroused  when  Gunnar  is  thrown 
by  Atli  into  the  snake-pit.  This  occurs  both  in  Atlakvitha  and 
Atlanta^  and  the  treatment  of  it  is  very  similar.  Each  tells  that 
Gunnar,  when  thrown  into  the  pit,  plays  his  harp,  and  each  omits 
to  dwell  on  the  fact  that  this  is  how  he  meets  his  death.  Gunnar  is 
determined  never  to  reveal  to  Atli  the  secret  of  the  hidden  gold 
which  Atli  wants,  and  the  poet  of  Atlakvitha  shows  what  courage 
can  do  in  such  a  situation  : 

By  the  warriors'  host      was  the  living  hero 

Cast  in  the  den      where  crawling  about 

Within  were  serpents,       but  soon  did  Gunnar 

With  his  hand  in  wrath      on  the  harp-strings  smite  ; 

The  strings  resounded,  —      so  shall  a  hero 

A  ring-breaker,  gold      from  his  enemies  guard.1 

The  poet  of  Atlamdl  is  less  interested  in  the  reason  for  Gunnar's 
suffering  than  in  the  way  in  which  he  surmounts  it.  He  mentions 
the  significant  detail  that  he  plays  the  harp  with  his  feet  —  because, 
as  the  audience  must  know,  his  hands  are  bound  : 

A  harp  Gunnar  seized,      with  his  toes  he  smote  it ; 
So  well  did  he  strike      that  the  women  all  wept, 
And  the  men,  when  clear      they  heard  it,  lamented  ; 
Full  noble  was  his  song,      the  rafters  burst  asunder.2 

Since  Gunnar's  heroism  survives  a  hideous  situation  and  a  gross 
personal  indignity,  the  horror  serves  to  show  what  a  great  man  he  is. 
Norse  poetry  goes  much  further  than  this  when  it  deals  with 
the  destruction  of  children.  Such  themes  were  known  to  Greek 
poetry  in  the  tales  of  Tantalus  and  Atreus  who  serve  up  children 
to  be  eaten  at  banquets,  but  the  Norse  poets  use  the  theme  and 
others  like  it  with  a  peculiar  horror.  When  Volund  begins  to 
avenge  himself  on  Nithuth,  who  has  kept  him  in  bondage  for  many 
years,  his  first  step  is  taken  through  Nithuth's  children,  whom  he 
beguiles  into  his  house  and  kills.  He  then  proceeds  with  his 
appalling  plan  : 

Their  skulls,  once  hid      by  their  hair,  he  took, 
Set  them  in  silver      and  sent  them  to  Nithuth  ; 
Gems  full  fair      from  their  eyes  he  fashioned, 
To  Nithuth's  wife      so  wise  he  gave  them. 

And  from  the  teeth      of  the  twain  he  wrought 
A  brooch  for  the  breast,      to  Bothvild  he  sent  it.3 

1   Atlakvitha,  34.  2  Atlamdl,  62. 

'    Volundarkvitha,  25-6. 

73 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Nithuth,  his  wife,  and  his  daughter,  Bothvild,  are  entirely  deceived, 
and  the  crisis  comes  when  Volund  tells  them  the  truth.  Now  it  is 
clear  that  Volund's  action  is  dictated  by  desire  for  revenge,  and, 
since  he  has  been  vilely  treated  by  Nithuth,  we  have  some 
sympathy  for  him,  but  we  may  still  feel  qualms  about  the  desperate 
manner  of  his  vengeance,  and  it  is  at  least  possible  that  a  Norse 
audience  would  have  felt  the  same.  The  poet  puts  a  severe  strain 
on  our  sympathy,  and  perhaps  the  explanation  is  that  Volund  is 
not  so  much  a  hero  as  a  magician.  As  a  cunning  smith  he  is  outside 
the  code  of  heroic  honour  and  is  expected  to  practise  sinister  arts. 
Volund  should  be  viewed  not  with  respect  but  with  fear  and  awe, 
as  one  who  possesses  special  knowledge  and  may  put  it  to  ugly 
purposes.  When  such  a  man  is  wronged,  his  vengeance  will  be 
more  than  usually  gruesome,  and  we  must  listen  to  his  story  with  a 
full  apprehension  of  the  fearful  means  of  action  which  are  at  his 
command. 

Guthrun  also  kills  children,  but  they  are  her  own,  and  she 
serves  them  up  for  her  husband  to  eat.  Since  he  has  killed  her 
brothers,  she  must  take  vengeance  on  him,  and  is  determined  to 
make  it  as  complete  and  ruthless  as  possible.  In  Atlakvitha  we  do 
not  hear  how  Guthrun  kills  the  children,  and  the  first  hint  that 
she  has  done  so  comes  when  she  says  to  Atli : 

"  Thou  mayst  eat  now,  chieftain,      within  thy  dwelling, 
Blithely  with  Guthrun      young  beasts  fresh  slaughtered."  * 

The  "  young  beasts  "  are  her  sons  by  Atli  —  Erp  and  Eitil  — 
whose  flesh  he  eats  in  ignorance.  When  he  has  done  so,  Guthrun 
tells  him  the  truth,  and  the  first  step  in  her  vengeance  is  complete. 
The  poet  stresses  that  Guthrun  weeps  neither  for  her  dead  brothers 
nor  for  her  children  whom  she  has  herself  slain,  as  if  he  wished 
to  make  her  character  as  grim  as  he  can.  In  Atlamdl  the  episode 
is  told  in  almost  the  same  outline  but  with  a  difference  of  emphasis. 
The  poet  adds  pathos  to  the  boys'  fate  by  making  them  ask 
Guthrun  why  she  wishes  to  kill  them,  and  he  adds  an  unexpected 
touch  of  horror  when  she,  in  telling  Atli  what  has  happened, 
spares  him  nothing : 

"  The  skulls  of  thy  boys      thou  as  beer-cups  didst  have, 

And  the  draught  that  I  made  thee      was  mixed  with  their  blood. 

I  cut  out  their  hearts,      on  a  spit  I  cooked  them. 

I  came  to  thee  with  them,      and  calf's  flesh  I  called  them  ; 

Alone  didst  thou  eat  them,      nor  any  didst  leave, 

Thou  didst  greedily  bite,      and  thy  teeth  were  busy/'  2 

1  Atlakvitha,  36,  3-4.  2  Atlatndl,  77-8. 

74 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

In  both  accounts  Guthrun's  motive  is  vengeance,  and  to  this 
extent  she  resembles  Volund.  Since  her  husband  has  wronged 
her  irredeemably  by  killing  her  brothers  whose  treasure  he  covets, 
he  is  beyond  mercy,  and  up  to  a  point  Guthrun  acts  rightly. 
But  her  vengeance  takes  a  dire  form,  of  which  the  poets  are  fully 
conscious.  They  stress  the  horror  because  it  shows  to  what  straits 
Guthrun  has  been  brought  and  how  her  heroic  temper  turns  with 
all  its  fierceness  to  exact  the  utmost  humiliation  from  Atli. 

These  scenes  of  horror  are  connected  with  something  else 
which  receives  some  prominence  in  heroic  poetry  —  its  sense  of 
the  disasters  which  await  the  great  and  its  feeling  for  their  im- 
aginative appeal.  Such  a  subject  can  hardly  be  avoided.  Men 
who  live  by  violent  action  will  often  find  that  it  recoils  on  them 
and  ruins  them.  The  poet  naturally  tells  of  this  and  in  doing  so 
tries  to  explain  it  and  implicitly  comments  on  it  by  his  treatment 
of  it.  On  the  whole  the  more  primitive  kinds  of  poetry  avoid 
such  subjects.  The  heroes  of  the  Kara- Kirghiz  or  the  Kalmucks 
or  the  Yakuts  end  their  days  in  happiness,  honoured  and  success- 
ful. Even  Homer  avoids  closing  the  Iliad  on  a  tragic  note.  Tt  is 
true  that  more  than  once  he  points  out  that  Achilles'  death  is  not 
far  distant,  but  the  Iliad  ends  not  with  it  but  with  the  funeral  of 
Hector,  while  the  Odyssey  may  indeed  stress  that  Odysseus  is 
not  entirely  secure  even  after  he  has  killed  the  Suitors,  but  none 
the  less  leaves  him  in  possession  of  his  wife  and  his  home.  On 
the  other  hand  great  disasters  and  catastrophes  are  faced  fearlessly 
by  Jugoslav,  French,  Norse,  and  Anglo-Saxon  heroes.  The 
question  is  what  poetry  is  extracted  from  them. 

At  the  outset  it  is  worth  noticing  that  the  calamities  of  heroic 
poetry  are  seldom  treated  in  a  truly  tragic  spirit.  What  happens 
in  Roland  or  Maldon  or  the  Jugoslav  poems  on  Kosovo  is  indeed 
a  gigantic  disaster,  but  not  of  the  same  kind  as  what  happens  in 
King  Oedipus  or  King  Lear.  First,  when  Roland  or  Byrhtnoth 
falls  after  a  furious  fight,  we  do  not  have  the  same  sense  of  utter 
desolation  and  waste  that  we  have  in  authentic  tragedy.  It  is 
true  that  the  heroes'  efforts  may  well  have  been  futile,  that  their 
armies  are  destroyed  and  their  enemies  triumphant.  It  is  also 
true  that  they  seem  to  be  caught,  often  through  their  own  decisions, 
in  a  web  of  disaster  from  which  there  is  no  honourable  escape  but 
death.  But,  even  allowing  for  all  this,  their  deaths  are  somehow 
an  occasion  for  pride  and  satisfaction.  We  feel  not  only  that  their 
lives  are  not  given  in  vain,  since  they  have  set  an  example  of  how 
a  man  should  behave  when  he  has  to  pass  the  final  ordeal  of 
manhood,  but  that  by  choosing  this  kind  of  death  he  sets  a  logical 

75 


HEROIC  POETRY 

and  proper  goal  for  himself.  The  man  who  has  killed  others  must 
be  ready  to  be  killed  himself.  There  is  more  than  a  poetic  justice 
in  this ;  there  is  an  assumption  that,  since  the  hero  subjects  his 
human  gifts  to  the  utmost  strain,  he  will  in  the  end  encounter 
something  beyond  him,  and  then  it  is  right  for  him  to  be  defeated. 
Secondly,  we  may  well  doubt  whether  the  catastrophes  of  heroic 
poetry  normally  evoke  pity  and  fear.  Are  we  really  sorry  for 
Roland  or  for  Lazar  or  the  heroes  of  Maldon  in  their  last  great 
fights  ?  Do  we  not  rather  feel  that  it  is  all  somehow  splendid 
and  magnificent  and  what  they  themselves  would  have  wished 
for,  "  a  good  end  to  the  long  cloudy  day  "  ?  Equally,  do  we  really 
feel  fear  for  them  ?  Of  course  we  know  that  they  run  terrible  risks 
and  have  no  chance  of  survival.  But  surely  we  do  not  feel  fear 
for  them  as  we  do  for  Lear  on  the  heath  or  for  Oedipus  when  he 
begins  to  discover  the  whole  horrible  truth.  Indeed  the  nearer 
these  heroes  come  to  their  ends,  the  greater  is  our  pride  and  delight 
in  them.  This  surely  is  the  way  in  which  they  should  behave 
when  death  is  near,  and  if  death  were  not  near,  they  would  miss 
this  chance  of  showing  the  stuff  of  which  they  are  made. 

Great  catastrophes  are  occasions  for  heroes  to  make  their 
greatest  efforts  and  perform  their  finest  feats.  This  is  pre- 
eminently the  case  in  Roland,  where  not  only  Roland  and  Oliver 
but  their  companions  show  strength  and  skill  to  a  prodigious 
degree.  Although  the  odds  are  extravagantly  against  them,  they 
surpass  even  their  own  records,  and  both  Roland  and  Oliver  kill 
large  numbers  of  enemy  before  they  are  themselves  wounded. 
When  finally  they  are  mortally  struck,  their  deaths  come  largely 
because  they  are  utterly  exhausted  by  their  efforts.  They  have 
done  all  and  more  than  all  that  can  be  expected  of  them,  and  that 
is  why  their  deaths  are  hardly  matter  even  for  sorrow,  let  alone 
for  any  violent  tragic  emotions.  It  is  indeed  what  they  would  have 
desired.  For,  as  Charlemagne  says, 

"  At  Aix  I  was,  upon  the  feast  Noel, 

Vaunted  them  there  my  valiant  chevaliers, 

Of  battles  great  and  very  hot  contests  ; 

With  reason  thus  I  heard  Reliant  speak  then  : 

He  would  not  die  in  any  foreign  realm 

Ere  he'd  surpassed  his  peers  and  all  his  men, 

To  the  foes'  land  he  would  have  turned  his  head, 

Conqueringly  his  gallant  life  he'ld  end."  1 

In  such  a  death  there  is  undeniably  something  complete  and 
satisfying.  The  same  note  may  be  seen  in  Maldon.  When  Offa 

1  Roland,  2860-67. 

76 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

dies  in  the  fight,  his  end  is  both  what  he  would  himself  have 
wished  and  what  his  companions  regard  as  right  and  fitting : 

Swiftly  was  Offa      struck  down  in  battle  ; 
Yet  what  he  promised      his  prince  he  accomplished, 
As  erstwhile  he  boasted      to  the  bestower  of  rings, 
That  they  should  both  of  them      ride  to  the  stronghold, 
Unscathed  to  their  home,      or  fall  with  the  host, 
Perish  of  wounds      on  the  field  of  war.1 

The  secret  of  this  poetry  is  that  it  sees  in  heroic  death  the  fitting 
fulfilment  of  a  heroic  life.  That  both  Roland  and  the  men  of 
Maldon  die  in  defeat  does  not  matter.  It  is  far  more  important 
that  their  personal  honour  has  been  vindicated  beyond  challenge 
and  that  they  have  justified  both  their  own  boasts  and  the  high 
hopes  that  others  have  held  of  them. 

In  heroic  poetry,  death,  no  matter  how  disastrous,  is  usually 
transcended  in  glory.  But  there  are  some  cases  where  it  is 
authentically  tragic  and  produces  a  different  effect.  Such  cases 
come  from  a  conflict  between  two  heroes  and  relate  to  some 
struggle  between  them  which  can  only  be  solved  by  death,  and 
since  both  protagonists  may  be  noble  and  attractive,  the  death  of 
one  arouses  emotions  other  than  pride  and  glory.  Such  is  the 
struggle  between  Achilles  and  Hector.  It  is  inevitable  that  they 
should  meet  in  deadly  conflict,  and  hardly  less  inevitable  that 
Hector  should  lose.  He  is,  heroically  speaking,  inferior  to  Achilles, 
whom  he  equals  neither  in  speed  nor  in  strength.  But  humanly  he 
is  at  least  equally  attractive,  and  his  fate  therefore  is  bound  to 
concern  us.  Indeed  it  has  a  special  claim  because  on  his  life  so 
much  depends  —  the  fortunes  of  his  old  parents,  his  wife  and  small 
son,  and  the  whole  existence  of  Troy.  His  death  is  a  culmination 
of  his  life,  and  he  himself  knows  that  it  will  come.  But  when  he 
dies,  any  sense  of  satisfaction  which  it  might  have  brought  is 
overwhelmed  in  the  prospects  of  disaster  which  it  makes  imminent. 
It  is  as  if  with  his  death  the  whole  of  Troy  shakes  to  its  founda- 
tions.2 Moreover,  Homer  emphasises  the  tragic  character  of 
Hector's  death  by  showing  its  effect  on  his  wife.  She  is  indoors 
at  her  loom  and  gives  orders  to  her  servants  to  heat  the  bath-water 
for  Hector  when  he  returns  from  the  battlefield.  Suddenly  she 
hears  a  noise  of  lamentation  and  goes  to  find  out  what  it  means, 
only  to  see  her  husband's  dead  body  being  dragged  behind  the 
chariot  of  Achilles.3  Such  a  death  is  not  like  Roland's.  Hector  has 
too  many  human  ties  to  win  the  isolated  glory  which  comes  to  a 
great  hero  when  he  dies  in  battle.  In  his  case  the  only  answer  to 

1  Maldon,  288-93.  2  //.  xxii,  410  ff.  3  Ibid.  437  ff. 

77 


HEROIC  POETRY 

death  is  grief,  and  this  Homer  depicts  in  the  lamentations  which 
the  women  of  Troy  make  for  him  after  his  death. 

Something  similar  may  be  seen  in  the  Elder  Edda  where 
Sigurth  is  a  great  hero,  who  comes  to  a  terrible  end  for  which 
there  is  no  consolation  in  a  sense  of  glorious  completeness. 
Indeed  his  death  is  even  more  painful  than  Hector's  since  it  is 
encompassed  by  a  woman  who  loves  him  and  a  man  to  whom  he 
has  given  magnificent  and  devoted  service.  When  Gunnar  yields 
to  Brynhild's  demand  that  Sigurth  be  slain,  a  situation  arises 
which  can  strike  us  only  with  dismay  and  horror.  Moreover,  this 
death  is  carried  out  by  methods  which  destroy  any  sympathy  we 
might  otherwise  feel  for  the  killers.  They  may  act  on  a  point  of 
honour,  but  their  action  is  little  short  of  dishonourable.  Gunnar 
feels  that  he  himself  cannot  kill  Sigurth,  since  they  are  bound 
by  oaths  of  friendship ;  so  he  persuades  his  brother,  Gotthorm, 
who  is  bound  by  no  such  oath,  to  do  the  ghastly  work  for  him. 
Gotthorm  attacks  Sigurth  treacherously  when  he  is  asleep  in  bed, 
and  the  one  consolation  in  the  whole  episode  is  that  Sigurth  dies 
fighting  and,  before  he  perishes,  kills  his  slayer : 

In  vengeance  the  hero      rose  in  the  hall, 
And  hurled  his  sword      at  the  slayer  bold  ; 
At  Gotthorm  flew      the  glittering  steel 
Of  Gram  full  hard      from  the  hand  of  the  king. 

The  foeman  cleft      asunder  fell, 
Forward  hands      and  head  did  sink, 
And  legs  and  feet      did  backwards  fall.1 

The  poet  exerts  himself  to  win  sympathy  for  Sigurth  and  to  make 
his  death  an  occasion  for  horrified  pity.  It  is  a  terrible  crime,  and 
though  the  reasons  for  it  may  have  been  unanswerable  from  a 
heroic  standpoint,  the  horror  of  it  remains. 

The  ever-present  menace  of  violent  death  is  a  challenge  to  a 
hero  because  it  means  that  in  the  short  and  uncertain  time  at  his 
disposal  he  must  strain  his  utmost  to  exert  all  his  capacities  and 
win  an  imperishable  name.  But  poets  are  not  content  always  to 
treat  death  as  a  final  obliteration.  They  sometimes  tell  how  heroes 
face  it  in  an  even  bolder  spirit  and  seek  to  master  its  mysteries  by 
exploring  the  twilit  world  of  the  dead  or  conversing  with  spirits. 
Then  for  a  moment  the  darkness  which  wraps  human  life  is 
broken,  and  we  see  something  of  the  dread  powers  which  rule 
men's  destinies.  Instead  of  confining  itself  to  the  familiar  world, 
heroic  poetry  then  breaks  into  the  unknown,  broadens  its  range, 

1  Sigurtharkvitha  en  Skamma,  22-3. 

78 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

and  sets  its  actions  in  an  unfamiliar  perspective.  Such  episodes 
are  an  inheritance  from  shamanistic  poetry,  which  still  uses  them 
among  the  Tibetans,  the  Abakan  Tatars,  and  the  Finns.  But 
what  is  natural  enough  for  a  magician  is  more  surprising  in  a  hero 
and  needs  a  new  interpretation.  It  is  perfectly  suitable  that  the 
sorcerers  of  the  Kalevala,  who  seek  to  know  all  earth's  secrets, 
should  visit  the  god  of  death,  but  when  the  Esthonian  Kalevide 
does  so,  he  acts  from  an  excess  of  heroism,  from  a  desire  to  defeat 
even  the  final  and  ineluctable  powers  who  control  him.  In  such 
an  adventure  he  cannot  quite  dispense  with  magic,  and  in  this 
shows  his  affinities  to  the  shamans,  but  his  best  moments  are 
when  he  sheds  magic  for  purely  human  means,  as  when  he  is 
offered  a  wishing-cap  and  rod  but  refuses  them  as  fit  only  for 
witches  and  wizards.  In  this  choice  he  shows  his  superiority  and 
proves  that,  even  below  the  earth,  it  is  the  heroic  qualities  that 
count.  When  the  crisis  comes,  the  Kalevide  fights  like  a  man  with 
the  god  of  death.  Sarvik  comes  with  a  noise  like  hundreds  of 
cavalry  thundering  along  a  copper  roadway ;  the  earth  quakes, 
and  the  cavern  shakes  beneath  him,  but  the  Kalevide  stands  un- 
dismayed at  the  entrance,  waiting  for  the  onslaught : 

Like  the  oak-tree  in  the  tempest, 
Or  the  red  glow  mid  the  cloudlets, 
Or  the  rock  amid  the  hailstorm, 
Or  a  tower  in  windy  weather.1 

Though  in  his  struggle  with  Sarvik  the  Kalevide  uses  magic,  in 
the  end  he  wins  because  of  his  undaunted  courage  and  obstinate 
refusal  to  retreat.  The  episode  shows  that,  even  when  they  are 
confronted  with  supernatural  enemies,  heroes  may  triumph  by 
being  true  to  their  own  rules.  By  setting  the  Kalevide  in  this 
unwonted  situation,  the  poet  throws  a  fresh  light  on  his  prowess 
and  capacity. 

When  visits  to  the  underworld  pass  beyond  the  limits  of  a 
shamanistic  outlook  and  are  related  to  a  purely  heroic  attitude, 
the  poets  are  free  to  do  much  with  them  and  ennoble  them  with 
great  flights  of  imagination,  especially  by  showing  what  they  mean 
to  the  human  beings  who  embark  upon  them.  In  the  Norse 
Brynhild' s  Hell  Ride  Brynhild,  after  her  body  has  been  burned  on 
its  pyre,  is  carried  on  a  waggon  to  the  underworld.  On  the  way 
she  meets  a  giantess,  who  blocks  her  advance  and  refuses  admission 
to  her  because  she  follows  Sigurth,  who  is  the  husband  of  another 
woman.  In  the  dialogue  that  follows  Brynhild  triumphs  by  sheer 

1   Kirby,  i,  p.  101. 

79 


HEROIC  POETRY 

force  of  character.  So  far  from  being  ashamed  of  her  actions,  she 
is  proud  of  her  valour  in  battle  and  of  her  chaste  love  for  Sigurth  : 

"  Happy  we  slept,      one  bed  we  had, 
As  he  my  brother      born  had  been  ; 
Eight  were  the  nights      when  neither  there 
Loving  hand      on  the  other  laid."  * 

Because  of  this  she  has  lost  Sigurth  and  her  own  life,  but  it  is  none 
the  less  a  satisfaction  to  her.  Her  love  will  defeat  all  obstacles  in 
the  end,  and  it  is  futile  for  the  giantess  to  try  to  obstruct  her : 

"  But  yet  we  shall  live      our  lives  together, 
Sigurth  and  I.      gink  down,  Giantess  !  "  2 

By  basing  his  poem  on  the  belief  that  love  is  stronger  than  death, 
the  poet  gives  a  special  character  to  the  theme  of  a  journey  to  the 
underworld.  Of  course  his  version  is  new  and  original.  His 
heroine  is  not  alive  but  dead  ;  it  is  her  passion  for  Sigurth  which 
survives  and,  being  no  less  strong  than  it  was  in  life,  carries  all 
before  it.  Through  the  force  of  her  passion  Brynhild  remains 
herself,  even  though  her  body  has  been  burned.  She  acts  as  she 
ought  to  act  in  this  strange  situation,  as  if  all  that  is  inessential 
has  been  purified  from  her,  and  what  remains  is  her  true,  un- 
changing self.  If  the  giantess  stands  for  those  rules  which 
normally  guide  the  conduct  and  determine  the  merits  of  men  and 
women,  Brynhild  is  moved  by  something  stronger  and  finer,  by 
a  spirit  unconquerable  even  after  death. 

Another  powerful  variant  on  the  theme  of  the  underworld  is 
presented  by  Gilgamish.  Gilgamish's  companion,  Enkidu,  is 
doomed  by  the  gods  to  death  because  the  pair  of  them  have 
insulted  Ishtar.  Before  dying  Enkidu  dreams  what  will  happen  to 
him  and  learns  of  the  state  of  the  dead  : 

"  He  seized  me  and  led  me 

To  the  Dwelling  of  darkness,  the  home  of  Ikkalla, 

To  the  Dwelling  from  which  he  who  enters  never  comes  forth, 

On  the  road  by  which  there  is  no  returning, 

To  the  Dwelling  whose  tenants  are  robbed  of  the  daylight, 

Where  their  food  is  dust,  and  mud  is  their  sustenance. 

Like  birds  they  wear  a  garment  of  feathers, 

They  sit  in  the  darkness  and  never  see  the  light."  3 

Beyond  this  the  fragments  of  the  text  do  not  permit  us  to  go  safely, 
though  it  is  clear  that  Enkidu  dreams  of  the  gods  of  the  under- 
world. The  poet  presents  his  vision  of  the  dead  and  gives  to  it  a 

1  Helreith  Brynhildar,  12.  2  Ibid.  14,  3-4. 

3  Gilgamish,  vn,  iv,  33-40. 

so 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

peculiar  appeal  because  it  comes  to  a  hero  in  the  zenith  of  his 
glory.  What  might  be  no  more  than  a  depressing  account  of  the 
life  beyond  gains  greatly  in  pathos  because  it  is  presented  at  this 
time  in  this  tragic  and  intimate  way.  Enkidu  is  humbled  by  the 
gods  in  being  made  to  die,  and  his  punishment  is  all  the  harsher 
because  he  learns  in  advance  what  it  is  going  to  be.  Nor  is  the 
poet  content  with  this.  The  lesson  which  Knkidu  learns  must 
be  brought  home  also  to  Gilgamish,  and  this  happens  when 
Gilgamish  summons  his  friend's  spirit  and  questions  it  about 
death.  Enkidu's  spirit  speaks  unwillingly,  knowing  that  what  he 
has  to  say  can  bring  nothing  but  sorrow  : 

11  I  will  not  tell  thee,  I  will  not  tell  thee  ; 

Were  I  to  tell  thee  what  I  have  seen 

Of  the  laws  of  the  Underworld,  sit  down  and  weep  !  "  l 

Gilgamish  insists  on  hearing  and  forces  Knkidu  to  speak  of  the 
dismal  fate  that  awaits  the  living  : 

"  The  friend  thou  didst  fondle,  in  whom  thou  didst  rejoice, 

Into  his  body,  as  though  it  were  a  mantle, 

The  worm  has  made  its  entry  ; 

The  bride  thou  didst  fondle,  in  whom  thou  didst  rejoice, 

Her  body  is  filled  with  dust."  2 

So  the  old  stories  are  related  to  a  living  fear  of  death  and  a  know- 
ledge of  what  it  does  to  the  human  body.  The  legend  is  trans- 
formed into  a  vivid,  all  too  possible  experience. 

In  the  Odyssey  Odysseus  goes  to  the  end  of  the  world  to  consult 
the  ghost  of  the  seer  Teiresias  about  the  future.  Odysseus  does 
not  go  beneath  the  earth,  but,  guided  by  Circe's  instructions, 
sails  to  the  stream  of  Ocean  and  crosses  it  to  the  land  of  the 
Cimmerians  "  wrapped  in  mist  and  cloud  ".  By  the  Ocean 
Odysseus  digs  a  trench,  into  which  he  pours  blood,  and  hither 
the  ghosts  gather,  since,  if  they  drink  of  the  blood,  they  regain  for 
a  moment  their  lost  wits  and  become  something  like  their  old 
selves  again.  Some  of  the  great  heroes  of  Troy  appear  and  speak 
in  their  essential  character.  First,  Agamemnon  tells  of  his 
murder  by  his  wife.  The  proud  general  of  the  Achaeans  has  been 
killed  in  a  brutal  and  shameful  manner  in  his  home  and  feels 
angry  resentment  for  it,  but  he  nurses  a  hope  that  his  son  will 
avenge  him,  and  in  the  thought  of  this  his  pride  revives.  After 
him  appears  Achilles,  who  asks  about  his  son  and  is  glad  to  hear 
of  his  prowess  : 

1   Ibid,  xii,  i,  90-92.  2  Ibid.  93-7. 

81 


HEROIC  POETRY 

And  the  spirit  of  fleet-foot  Achilles 

Passed  with  his  great  long  strides  going  over  the  asphodel  meadow, 
Joyful  because  I  had  said  that  his  son  gained  honour  and  glory.1 

The  third  to  appear  is  Ajax,  with  whom  Odysseus  has  quarrelled 
fatally  at  Troy.  Even  in  death  Ajax  keeps  his  old  hatred  of 
Odysseus  and  silently  rejects  the  friendly  words  addressed  to  him  : 

So  did  I  speak,  but  he  answered  to  me  not  a  word,  and  departed 
To  Erebus,  to  mingle  where  other  spirits  had  gathered.2 

In  this  passage  Homer  shows  what  awaits  heroes  after  death.  Only 
if  they  drink  blood  have  they  any  true  consciousness,  and  even 
then  their  thoughts  turn  to  their  past  lives  or  to  hopes  of  glory 
for  their  sons.  This  is  the  background  against  which  the  heroic 
world  plays  out  its  drama.  Homer  uses  the  theme  of  a  blood- 
sacrifice  to  the  dead,  which  is  at  least  as  old  as  the  fifteenth 
century  B.C.  when  it  appears  on  a  sarcophagus  found  at  Hagia 
Triada  in  Crete,3  to  pass  a  comment  on  the  terms  on  which  heroic 
life  is  held. 

If  the  ghosts  of  heroes  illustrate  Homer's  attitude  towards  the 
love  of  glory,  the  scene  between  Odysseus  and  his  mother  is  a 
comment  on  the  affections.  Odysseus  has  been  away  from  home 
for  many  years  and  does  not  know  that  his  mother  is  dead.  Hers 
is  the  first  ghost  to  appear,  but  he  does  not  speak  to  her  first, 
because  he  has  to  question  the  ghost  of  Teiresias  before  any  other. 
When  he  has  done  this,  he  allows  his  mother  to  come  near  and 
drink  of  the  blood,  and  then  she  knows  him  and  can  speak  to 
him.  He  questions  her,  especially  about  her  death,  and  her  answer 
shows  the  strength  of  her  affection  for  him  : 

"  For  it  was  not  she,  the  keen-eyed  Archer  of  Heaven, 
Stole  on  me  unperceived,  and  painlessly  smote  with  her  arrows, 
Nor  did  a  fever  attack  me,  and  with  its  wasting  consumption, 
Such  as  is  common  with  men,  drain  out  the  life  from  the  body ; 
But  it  was  longing  and  care  for  thee,  my  noble  Odysseus, 
And  for  thy  kindness  of  heart,  that  robbed  me  of  life  and  its 
sweetness. "  4 

This  stirs  Odysseus'  love  in  return,  and  three  times  he  tries  to 
embrace  her,  but  three  times  she  eludes  him  "  like  a  shadow  or  a 
dream  ".  He  complains  of  it  to  her,  and  her  reply  reveals  the 
piteous  state  of  the  dead  : 

"  Woe  is  to  me,  my  son ;  most  wretched  art  thou  above  all  men. 
Think  not  the  daughter  of  Zeus,  Persephone,  wishes  to  cheat  thee  ; 

1   Od.  xi,  538-40.  2  Ibid.  563-4. 

3  Bossert,  p.  48  ff.  4  Od.  xi,  198-203. 

82 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

This  is  the  law  of  mortals,  whenever  anyone  dieth, 

Then  no  longer  are  flesh  and  bone  held  together  by  sinews, 

But  by  the  might  of  the  blazing  fire  are  conquered  and  wasted. 

From  that  moment  when  first  the  breath  departs  from  the  white  bones, 

Flutters  the  spirit  away,  and  like  to  a  dream  it  goes  drifting."  l 

For  Homer  love  and  heroism  are  equally  destroyed  by  death. 
The  momentary  revival  of  them  in  these  eerie  conditions  only 
serves  to  show  how  utter  their  obliteration  is. 

The  pathos  of  Homer's  ghosts  is  that  they  long  to  be  on  earth 
and  to  regain  their  old  lives.  The  mere  presence  of  Odysseus, 
alive  and  active  among  them,  stirs  their  faint,  wistful  longings,  and 
it  is  not  surprising  that,  when  the  ghost  of  Agamemnon  sees  him, 
it  weeps  and  stretches  out  hands  towards  him,  although  it  has 
no  power  or  strength  to  do  anything.2  So  in  another  scene  of  the 
Odyssey  the  state  of  the  dead  is  conveyed  through  a  precise  and 
poignant  simile  : 

As  when  bats  in  the  deep  hollows  of  a  marvellous  cavern 
Screech  and  flutter  about,  whenever  one  of  them  falleth 
Down  from  the  rock  where  it  clings,  and  they  cleave  close  one  to 
another.  3 

So  the  dead  screech  and  flutter,  showing  the  meaninglessness  and 
futility  of  their  existence.  But  the  deepest  pathos  of  their  situa- 
tion is  that  dimly  and  vaguely  but  none  the  less  keenly  they  are 
conscious  of  the  contrast  between  what  they  were  on  earth  and 
what  they  are  now.  At  least,  when  Achilles  drinks  of  the  blood 
and  regains  for  a  moment  his  old  wits,  he  knows  how  vastly 
inferior  his  present  state  is  to  the  lowest  that  he  can  imagine 
upon  earth.  He  recognises  Odysseus  and  asks  him  why  he  has 
come  to  visit  the  dead,  since  they  are  senseless  and  mere  phantoms 
of  the  living.  Then,  from  his  momentary  knowledge  he  compares 
his  present  with  his  past  and  says  : 

"  Speak  no  words  unfitting  of  death,  most  famous  Odysseus. 
Would  that  I  were  once  more  upon  earth,  the  serf  of  another, 
Even  of  some  poor  man,  who  had  not  wealth  in  abundance, 
Than  be  the  king  of  the  realm  of  those  to  whom  death  has  befallen."  « 

Against  this  menacing  prospect  of  a  faint,  resentful,  bloodless 
survival  in  the  beyond,  this  sense  that  only  upon  earth  is  a  man 
fully  in  possession  of  his  powers  and  his  intelligence,  Homer  sets 
his  living  world  and  marks  the  contrast  between  the  full-blooded 
Odysseus  and  the  fluttering  wraiths  of  his  former  comrades  at 

1  Ibid.  216-23.  z  Ibid.  392-4- 

3  Ibid,  xxiv,  6-8.  4  Ibid,  xi,  488-91. 

83 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Troy.  We  can  hardly  fail  to  draw  the  conclusion  that  for  Homer 
and  indeed  for  other  heroic  poets,  the  great  deeds  of  the  living 
are  the  more  worth  doing  because  the  chance  for  them  is  so 
brief,  and  a  great  darkness  awaits  everyone  afterwards. 

If  death  bounds  the  heroic  span  of  life,  heroes,  while  they 
live,  have  to  reckon  in  the  gods  with  something  outside  their 
control  and  often  hostile  to  their  ambitions.  The  power  of  the 
gods  limits  their  activities  in  many  ways  and  gives  a  special  char- 
acter to  some  classes  of  heroic  poetry.  They  are,  or  can  be,  the 
one  thing  with  which  heroes  can  reach  no  final  settlement  or 
compromise.  No  doubt  many  heroes  would  be  content  to  live 
without  them  and  feel  no  need  of  them,  since  they  put  all  their 
trust  in  their  own  specifically  human  powers.  In  much  heroic 
poetry  the  gods  play  no  part  either  on  the  stage  or  behind  the 
scenes.  It  is  for  instance  characteristic  of  the  lays  of  heroes  in  the 
Elder  Edda  that  the  gods  have  almost  been  eliminated  from  them. 
Once,  it  seems,  the  gods  took  an  active  part  in  Norse  stories,  but 
the  extant  poems  have  reduced  their  role  almost  to  nothing. 
Valkyries  may  speak  in  Hrafnsmal  and  Hakonarmdl,  but  they  do 
nothing  else.  It  looks  as  if  the  Norse  poets  felt  that  any  interfer- 
ence with  human  action  by  the  gods  somehow  lowers  its  dignity 
and  detracts  from  the  heroes'  glory.  If  gods  were  to  be  the  subjects 
of  song,  they  should  be  confined  to  special  poems  about  them  in 
which  human  beings  have  no  part.  This  is  an  extreme  position 
and  reveals  a  heroic  humanism,  which  is  not  very  common  but  is 
none  the  less  a  logical  development  of  a  strictly  heroic  standpoint. 

In  monotheistic  societies  divine  intervention  in  heroic  actions 
is  rare  and  usually  confined  to  events  outside  the  sphere  of  prowess 
and  effort.  In  Roland  angels  come  to  carry  off  Roland's  soul  to 
Paradise,  but  do  not  help  him  while  he  is  alive.  When  Manas 
dies,  God  sends  an  angel  to  make  enquiries  about  his  death  and 
restores  him  to  life,  but  Manas'  great  performances  are  accom- 
plished without  divine  help.  In  the  poems  about  Dzhangar  the 
great  man  is  blessed  and  protected  by  the  saints  of  Buddhism, 
but  they  do  not  interfere  in  his  battles.  We  are  left  to  assume 
that  the  heroes,  strengthened  by  their  faith,  whatever  it  may  be, 
and  trusting  consciously  in  it,  need  no  additional  support  from 
God.  They  carry  out  His  will,  and  all  goes  well  with  them.  The 
same  is  true  on  a  smaller  scale  of  Russian  byliny,  although  their 
Christianity  is  more  implicit  than  vocal,  and  of  Bulgarian, 
Armenian,  Ukrainian,  and  Greek  poems  which  tell  of  fights  against 
infidel  Turks.  To  this  general  rule  of  monotheistic  poetry  there  is 
a  small  exception  in  Roland,  where  God  twice  intervenes  to  direct 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

the  action,  first  when  He  sends  a  supernatural  darkness  to  announce 
Roland's  death,1  and  secondly  when  He  stops  the  sun  to  help 
Charlemagne.2  Both  episodes  are  built  on  biblical  precedents,  but 
in  fact  neither  really  contributes  very  much  to  the  action,  since 
in  the  first  case  Roland  will  none  the  less  die,  and  in  the  second 
we  know  that  even  without  this  help  Charlemagne  will  chastise 
the  Saracens.  The  exception  is  not  important  and  does  little  to 
invalidate  the  general  rule  that  in  monotheistic  societies  heroic 
poetry  gives  little  active  part  to  God. 

There  are,  however,  places  in  which  a  monotheistic  religion 
retains  relics  of  older  polytheistic  beliefs  and  uses  them  for 
narrative.  The  Ossetes  of  the  Caucasus  are  in  theory  Christians, 
but  they  keep  many  memories  of  an  older  religion  and  pre- 
Christian  gods.  Just  as  the  hero  Batrazd  has  himself  forged  by 
the  divine  smith  Kurdalagon,  so  other  heroes  from  time  to  time 
sojourn  in  the  sky  with  the  gods  and  have  to  be  summoned  to 
earth  to  succour  their  friends  in  need.  The  Ossetes  seem  to  be 
uneasy  in  their  Christianity  and  to  think  that  when  heroism  is  in 
question,  men  need  divine  support  which  is  unlikely  to  come  from 
God  and  His  Saints.  Indeed  to  some  saints,  like  St.  Nicholas,  they 
are  avowedly  hostile  and  attribute  various  crimes.  They  prefer 
to  connect  their  heroes  with  pagan  powers  and  to  explain  their 
performances  by  these  rather  than  to  make  any  uneasy  com- 
promise with  Christianity.  Their  poems  come  from  a  time  when 
men  were  thought  to  have  easy  commerce  with  gods,  from  whom 
great  men  in  particular  learned  much.  To  these  beliefs  they 
adhere  because  they  are  necessary  to  the  structure  of  the  heroic 
world  of  the  Narts.  If  Christian  beliefs  have  been  superimposed 
on  them,  they  do  little  to  affect  either  the  course  or  the  temper  of 
the  stories. 

Something  of  the  same  kind  on  a  smaller  scale  can  be  seen 
in  the  part  played  by  the  Vile  in  Jugoslav  poems.  They  are 
supernatural  beings  of  no  very  obvious  origin,  akin  perhaps  to 
the  Valkyries,  creatures  of  storm  and  mountain  who  occasionally 
intervene  in  human  actions.  It  is  usual  to  translate  the  word  by 
"  fairies  ",  but  that  gives  too  gentle  and  too  fanciful  a  touch  to 
it.  They  are  fierce  female  spirits,  who  take  readily  to  violence. 
Originally  perhaps  they  were  none  too  friendly  to  men.  So  Marko 
Kraljevic*  fights  with  a  Vila  who  has  wounded  him  because  she 
objects  to  his  singing.3  But  this  hostile  role  seems  to  have  decreased 
with  time  until  Vile  have  become  the  friends  of  heroes.  Some- 
times they  perform  neutral  actions  like  prophesying  death  to 

1   1431  ff.  2  2458  ff.  3  Karadzic,  ii,  p.  196  ff. 

8s 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Marko  l  and  to  Novak.2  But  more  often  they  are  helpful,  as 
when  they  issue  warnings  of  danger.  So  after  the  failure  of  the 
revolt  against  the  Turks  in  1813,  it  is  a  Vila  who  warns  Kara- 
Djorje  of  dangers  to  come,3  and  similar  warnings  are  given 
to  the  Montenegrin  prince  Danilo,  who  reigned  from  1851  to 
1 86 1,  and  tell  him  that  the  Turkish  Sultan  is  sending  a  vast  host 
to  attack  him.  Danilo  tells  the  Vila  to  be  silent,  since  he  puts  his 
trust  in  the  Russian  and  Austrian  Emperors.  The  Vila  then 
warns  him  not  to  indulge  false  hopes  and  at  last  rouses  him  to 
battle.4  Another  task  of  Vile  is  to  help  soldiers  in  battle,  as  when 
one  comes  to  the  wounded  Ibro  Nukic  and  restores  him  to  health,5 
or  another  tends  the  wounds  of  Vuk  the  Dragon-Despot.6  The 
Vile  have  a  real  place  in  the  Jugoslav  heroic  world.  Once  perhaps 
they  were  more  important  and  took  a  more  active  part  in  the 
action,  but  even  now  they  appear  as  incarnations  of  strange 
powers  which  are  interested  in  the  doings  of  heroes  and  like  to 
help  them  on  occasions.  No  doubt  the  Vile  belong  to  some  old 
Slavonic  world  whose  other  inmates  have  disappeared,  while  they 
survive  because  they  embody  a  spirit  of  wildness  and  adventure. 

When  we  turn  from  these  cases  of  survival  to  polytheistic 
religions  in  their  full  heyday,  we  find  that  the  gods  are  much  more 
to  the  fore  and  more  busy  in  the  action  of  heroic  poetry.  The 
Yakuts,  for  instance,  are  one  of  the  few  Tatar  peoples  of  Asia 
who  have  not  embraced  Islam,  and  their  religion  is  still  in  some 
sense  polytheistic.  It  is  true  that  they  speak  of  a  single,  supreme 
god,  but  they  do  not  worship  him,  and  he  plays  little  part  in  their 
poetry.  On  the  other  hand  they  give  a  considerable  part  to  good 
and  evil  spirits  who  intermingle  with  human  beings  and  help  to 
sharpen  the  conflicts  to  which  they  are  exposed.  Indeed  much 
of  Yakut  poetry  consists  of  struggles  against  evil  spirits.  The 
heroes  are  helped  by  their  own  shamanistic  powers  as  well  as  by 
good  spirits,  with  the  result  that  in  the  end  goodness  triumphs. 
This  is  a  simple  outlook,  but  has  its  own  interest.  The  doings  of 
the  human  beings  gain  something  in  variety,  if  not  in  grandeur, 
from  their  middle  position  between  warring  spirits ;  they  are  at 
least  important  enough  for  evil  spirits  to  wish  to  harm  them  and 
good  spirits  to  protect  them.  The  stories  become  more  vivid 
because  issues  of  good  and  evil  are  at  stake,  and  the  sense  of 
heroic  values  is  not  diminished,  even  though  the  human  actors 
are  the  victims  or  beneficiaries  of  spiritual  powers.  Of  course  there 

1  Karad2i<5,  ii,  p.  405  if.  2  BogiSic,  no.  39. 

3  Karadzic,  iv,  p.  268  ff.  4  Idem,  iii,  p.  472  ff. 

5  Krauss,  p.  394  ff.  6  BogiSid,  no.  16. 

86 


THE  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

is  nothing  here  like  the  stark  human  isolation  of  the  Norse  poems, 
but  the  extension  of  the  struggle  into  a  supernatural  sphere  gives 
to  the  Yakut  world  a  new  significance  and  a  more  dramatic  appeal. 

When  a  polytheistic  religion  holds  the  field,  the  poet  may  well 
introduce  gods  and  goddesses  into  his  action,  and  even  construct 
his  plot  on  the  struggles  of  men  against  the  gods.  Such  a  poetry 
is  possible  only  when  the  gods  are  regarded  not  as  types  of  good- 
ness but  simply  as  embodiments  of  power  who  govern  human 
affairs.  There  is  nothing  wrong  in  opposing  them,  but  it  is 
extremely  dangerous.  The  poet  is  therefore  at  liberty,  if  he 
chooses,  to  put  the  gods  in  the  wrong  and  the  hero  in  the  right, 
or  at  least  to  distribute  his  praise  and  blame  between  them. 
Something  of  the  kind  may  be  observed  in  the  Canaanite  Aqhat, 
which  tells  how  the  hero  Aqhat  comes  to  his  death  through  the 
possession  of  a  divine  bow  which  the  goddess  'Anat  desires. 
Though  his  death  is  accidental  in  the  sense  that  'Anat  does  not 
wish  it  and  asks  for  no  more  than  his  temporary  disablement, 
its  importance  is  marked  by  the  blight  which  falls  on  the  earth 
after  it  and  is  not  stopped  until  the  assassin,  Yatpan,  is  discovered 
and  punished.1  Aqhat  certainly  has  a  kind  of  heroic  grandeur 
because  he  not  only  refuses  the  request  of  'Anat  for  the  bow  but 
in  doing  so  is  none  too  polite,  while  'Anat  herself,  though  innocent 
of  his  blood,  is  indirectly  responsible  for  the  blight  which  falls  on 
the  earth  and  has  to  be  stopped  by  religious  action.  There  is 
an  undeniable  satisfaction  in  the  moment  when  Aqhat's  sister, 
Yatpan,  discovers  the  murderer  and  kills  him,  by  making  him 
drink  too  much  and  fall  asleep,  and  no  doubt  we  are  expected  to 
think  this  right  and  proper.  Though  some  of  the  elements  in  the 
story  of  Aqhat  may  be  derived  from  a  ritual  of  death  and  rebirth, 
it  remains  a  heroic  narrative  in  which  the  gods  are  the  antagonists 
of  men,  and  despite  their  superior  powers  are  neither  wholly 
successful  nor  completely  in  the  right.  In  contrast  to  them 
Aqhat,  with  his  presumption  and  insolence,  has  a  heroic  stature 
and  independence. 

A  poet  may  introduce  gods  for  a  more  advanced  function  than 
this,  notably  by  depicting  both  men  and  gods  to  give  a  fuller 
picture  of  the  world  in  which  his  heroes  live  and  to  provide  by 
contrast  a  comment  on  their  way  of  life.  Notable  cases  of  this  are 
Gilgamish  and  the  Homeric  poems.  In  both  there  is  a  contra- 
diction between  the  ultimate  power  of  the  gods  and  the  free  and 
easy  way  in  which  the  heroes  treat  them.  Just  as  Gilgamish 
spends  much  of  his  time  in  trying  to  defeat  the  gods'  plans  for  his 

1  Caster,  p.  257  ff. 

87  G 


HEROIC  POETRY 

destruction  or  to  avoid  death,  which  they  have  decreed  for  all  men, 
so  the  Homeric  heroes  think  little  of  attacking  gods  and  goddesses 
in  battle  and  treat  them  as  none  too  serious  adversaries.  It  is 
possible  that  both  in  Gilgamish  and  in  Homer  a  more  primitive 
outlook,  which  allows  men  to  fight  the  gods,  has  been  imperfectly 
combined  with  a  maturer  outlook  which  insists  that  in  the  end  the 
gods  must  always  win.  But  so  far  as  the  action  of  the  poems  is 
concerned,  the  struggles  are  treated  with  a  fine  sense  of  dramatic 
possibilities.  The  gods  and  goddesses  look  and  behave  like 
human  beings  and  enter  easily  into  the  pattern  of  the  narrative. 
Though  they  have  moments  which  are  beyond  any  human 
capacity  as  when  the  gods  of  Gilgamish  send  the  Flood,  or  Homer's 
Zeus  shakes  Olympus  with  his  nod,  yet  on  the  whole  they  behave 
in  a  human  way  and  are  swayed  by  passions  and  desires  like  those 
of  men.  Just  as  Zeus  rules  none  too  comfortably  over  his  family 
of  immortals,  so  Anu  treats  Ishtar  first  with  a  charming  candour 
when  he  hears  of  her  desire  for  vengeance  on  Gilgamish,  and  then 
gives  in  to  her  importunities.  The  society  of  heroes  is  enlarged 
by  the  presence  of  gods  and  goddesses,  and  there  is  no  great 
difference  of  manners  between  them.  Through  this  the  poets 
secure  a  frame  in  which  to  place  certain  dramatic  contrasts. 

The  gods  are  essential  to  the  whole  scheme  of  Gilgamish  since 
in  his  struggle  with  them  the  hero  displays  the  full  scope  of  his 
energies  and  powers.  But  while  this  constitutes  his  heroic  life, 
his  actual  character  is  illuminated  by  contrasts  which  the  poet 
makes  between  him  and  the  immortals  at  two  important  stages 
of  the  story.  The  first  is  the  splendid  scene  in  which  Ishtar 
offers  him  her  love  and  he  not  only  refuses  it  but  taunts  her  with 
her  treatment  of  her  past  lovers.  Her  conduct  is  fairly  criticised 
by  her  father,  Anu,  who  tells  her  : 

"  Thou  didst  ask  him  to  give  thee  the  fruit  of  his  body, 
Hence  he  tells  thee  of  thy  sins,  of  thy  sins  and  iniquities."  J 

Ishtar  may  be  a  goddess,  but  she  is  not  at  all  beyond  reproach, 
whereas  Gilgamish  has  both  been  heroically  truthful  in  his  words 
to  her  and  shown  his  superiority  to  the  claims  of  the  flesh.  Later, 
a  like  contrast  is  made  between  him  and  Siduri,  the  goddess  of 
wine.  She  deals  not  only  with  wine  but  with  all  that  is  associated 
with  it  in  the  way  of  ease  and  indulgence,  and  her  philosophy,  which 
she  expounds  to  Gilgamish,  is  that  of  living  for  the  pleasure  of  the 
moment.  With  this  he  does  not  even  trouble  to  argue,  but  states 
firmly  his  intention  of  trying  to  win  immortality  and  tells  of  all 

1  Gilgamish,  vi,  88-9. 
88 


THK  POETRY  OF  ACTION 

that  he  is  prepared  to  risk  on  this  quest.  Once  again  he  shows 
his  moral  superiority  to  the  gods,  and  the  contrast  shows  his 
true  worth.  If  Gilgamish  is  superior  to  all  other  men,  he  is  also 
in  some  ways  superior  to  the  gods.  For  this  he  has  to  pay,  but  we 
feel  that  what  he  does  or  tries  to  do  is  itself  noble  and  that  he 
represents,  within  his  human  limitations,  an  exalted  ideal  of 
heroism. 

In  the  Homeric  poems  the  gods  play  a  more  various  part  than 
in  Gilgamish.  They  are  more  active  in  the  Iliad  than  in  the 
Odyssey,  but  in  the  Odyssey  at  least  Athene  and  to  a  lesser  degree 
Poseidon  are  important  characters  who  direct  or  obstruct  the 
actions  of  human  beings.  Homer's  gods  affect  his  poetry  of  action 
in  more  than  one  way.  First,  they  are  powers  of  the  spirit, 
influences  and  impulses  which  a  modern  psychology  might  ascribe 
to  a  man's  nature  but  which  the  Greeks,  not  unwisely,  saw  as 
external  and  independent  influences  coming  from  another  order 
of  being.  As  such  they  may  complete  a  man's  natural  and  human 
gifts,  as  Athene  completes  those  of  Odysseus  in  the  Odyssey,  where 
she  not  only  aids  and  abets  him  but  admires  his  cunning  and 
does  much  for  his  son  and  family.  It  is  as  if  he  were  partly  an 
embodiment  of  the  intellectual  qualities  which  she  represents, 
and  for  this  reason  he  has  a  special  dignity.  Conversely,  part  of 
the  pathos  of  Helen  is  that  she  is  the  victim  of  Aphrodite,  who 
has  decreed  a  destiny  for  her  and  refuses  to  release  her  from  it. 
When  Helen  succumbs  to  Paris,  she  does  not  wish  to  do  so,  but 
she  cannot  help  herself  because  she  is  the  victim  of  a  merciless 
goddess.1  Yet  there  is  something  in  Helen  which  makes  her  the 
victim  of  Aphrodite  —  her  essential  femininity  which  asserts  itself 
even  when  she  dislikes  and  condemns  it.  So  too  when  Athene 
appears  to  Achilles  and  is  seen  by  him  alone,  so  that  he  does 
not  use  his  sword  to  kill  Agamemnon,  she  does  no  more  than 
strengthen  and  make  explicit  what  already  lies  in  his  own  nature.2 
One  aspect  of  Homer's  gods  is  that  they  make  his  heroes  more 
truly  themselves  and  therefore  more  heroic. 

A  second  aspect  is  that  the  gods  take  sides  in  human  struggles 
for  or  against  individual  heroes.  Just  as  Odysseus  in  the  Odyssey 
is  supported  by  Athene  and  harried  by  Poseidon,  so  in  the  Iliad 
the  gods  divide  into  two  parties,  one  of  which  helps  the  Trojans 
and  the  other  the  Achaeans.  This  is  perhaps  a  reflection  of 
beliefs  in  national  deities,  but  Homer  gives  to  it  a  purely  personal 
form.  The  gods  act  on  whims  and  impulses  and  seem  to  embody 
the  many  forms  which  chance  may  take  in  human  affairs.  This 

1   //.  iii,  413  ff.  z  Jbid.  i,  190  ff. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

gives  a  peculiar  character  to  some  of  the  battles  before  Troy. 
What  seems  at  the  start  to  be  a  not  very  important  war  becomes 
more  important  because  the  gods  are  so  concerned  with  it.  And 
even  if  their  motives  are  highly  subjective  and  irresponsible,  that 
only  adds  to  the  dignity  of  the  men  who  fight  with  or  against 
them.  Since  the  important  thing  is  not  the  cause  for  which  the 
war  began  but  the  desire  to  win  glory  through  heroism,  men  have  a 
greater  chance  of  this  when  the  gods  take  part  in  the  action.  It  is 
all  the  more  noble  of  Diomedes  that  he  does  not  shrink  from 
fighting  even  Ares,  the  god  of  war,1  and  Hector's  death  is  all  the 
more  heroic  when  Apollo  deserts  him  and  leaves  him  to  fight 
Achilles  alone.2 

In  Homer's  treatment  of  the  gods  the  paradox  emerges  that 
they  are  less  noble  than  men,  and  this  is  indeed  inevitable  to  his 
heroic  vision  of  existence.  His  men  are  more  serious,  more 
constant,  more  courageous.  When  they  are  wounded,  they  do  not 
howl  as  Ares  does ;  3  they  do  not  desert  their  friends  as  the  gods 
do ;  they  are  faithful  to  their  wives  as  the  gods  are  not.  All  this 
is  required  of  heroes  and  appropriate  to  their  special  calling  and 
position.  But  the  gods  are  not  heroes.  Being  ageless  and  im- 
mortal, they  cannot  take  such  risks  as  men  do,  and  can  do  with 
impunity  what  men  may  do  at  the  cost  of  their  lives.  In  con- 
sequence the  gods  are  less  impressive  than  men.  They  can  never 
know  the  menace  of  death  which  forces  a  man  to  fill  his  life  with 
valorous  actions,  nor  the  code  of  honour  which  demands  that  a 
short  life  should  be  rewarded  by  an  undying  renown.  The  gods 
are  free  to  do  what  they  please,  and  for  that  reason  behave  without 
responsibility  and  obligations ;  and  the  result  is  that,  despite  all 
their  power  and  magnificence,  they  are  not  noble  or  dignified  in  a 
human  sense.  With  men  it  is  different.  They  are  bound  by  claims 
and  obligations,  and  in  their  devotion  to  these  and  especially  to 
the  ideal  of  manhood  which  embodies  them  they  achieve  a  real 
nobility.  In  the  Homeric  poems,  as  in  Gilgamish,  man's  mortality 
greatly  increases  his  grandeur,  because  it  means  that  in  his  brief 
career  he  must  do  his  utmost  to  realise  his  ideal  of  manhood  and 
be  prepared  in  the  end  to  sacrifice  everything  for  it. 

1  //.  v,  846  ff.  2  Ibid,  xxii,  213.  3  Ibid,  v,  860. 


Ill 

THE  HERO 

IN  the  poetry  of  heroic  action  leading  parts  are  assigned  to  mer 
of  superior  gifts,  who  are  presented  and  accepted  as  being  greatei 
than  other  men.^/  Though  much  of  their  interest  lies  in  whal 
happens  to  them  and  in  the  adventures  through  which  they  pass, 
an  equal  interest  lies  in  their  characters  and  personalities.  Their 
stories  are  the  more  absorbing  because  they  themselves  are  what 
they  are.  The  fate  of  Achilles  or  Sigurth  or  Roland  is  the  fate 
not  of  an  abstract  Everyman  but  of  an  individual  who  is  both 
an  example  of  pre-eminent  manhood  and  emphatically  himself. 
Heroes  awake  not  only  interest  in  their  doings  but  admiration 
and  even  awe  for  themselves.  Since  heroic  poetry  treats  of  action 
and  appeals  to  the  love  of  prowess,  its  chief  figures  are  men  who 
display  prowess  to  a  high  degree  because  their  gifts  are  of  a  very 
special  order.  This  does  not  mean  that  all  heroes  are  of  a  single 
kind.  Just  as  there  is  more  than  one  kind  of  human  excellence, 
so  there  is  more  than  one  kind  of  hero.  The  different  kinds  reflect 
not  only  different  stages  of  social  development  but  the  different 
metaphysical  and  theoretical  outlooks  which  the  conception  of  a 
hero  presupposes. 

A  hero  differs  from  other  men  in  the  degree  of  his  powers. 
In  most  heroic  poetry  these  are  specifically  human,  even  though 
they  are  carried  beyond  the  ordinary  limitations  of  humanity. 
Even  when  the  hero  has  supernatural  powers  and  is  all  the  more 
formidable  because  of  them,  they  do  little  more  than  supplement 
his  essentially  human  gifts.  He  awakes  admiration  primarily 
because  he  has  in  rich  abundance  qualities  which  other  men  have 
to  a  much  less  extent.  Heroic  poetry  comes  into  existence  when 
popular  attention  concentrates  not  on  a  man's  magical  powers 
but  on  his  specifically  human  virtues,  and,  though  the  conception 
of  him  may  keep  some  relics  of  an  earlier  outlook,  he  is  admired 
because  he  satisfies  new  standards  which  set  a  high  value  on  any- 
one who  surpasses  other  men  in  qualities  which  all  possess  to 
some  degree. 

In  pre-heroic  poetry  magic  plays  quite  a  different  part,  and 
the  emphasis  on  human  qualities  is  much  less  strong.  The  chief 


HEROIC  POETRY 

man  has  pride  of  place  because  he  is  a  magician  and  knows  how 
to  control  supernatural  powers.  A  typical  example  can  be  seen  in 
the  Finnish  lays  incorporated  in  the  Kalevala,  where  the  chief 
characters  are  not  warriors  who  prevail  by  strength  and  courage 
but  magicians  who  prevail  by  craft  and  a  special  knowledge. 
For  instance,  when  Vainamoinen,  Ilmarinen,  and  Lemminkainen 
steal  the  mysterious  Sampo  and  carry  it  off  in  their  ship,  they  are 
pursued  by  the  Mistress  of  Pohjola  in  a  war- vessel,  and  a  battle 
follows,  which  is  fought  on  very  unusual  lines.  When  Vaina- 
moinen sees  the  ship  coming  in  pursuit,  he  creates  a  reef,  on 
which  it  is  shattered.  The  Mistress  of  Pohjola  then  turns  herself 
into  a  fearful  flying  monster  and  carries  her  company  aloft  with 
her  to  assault  the  Finns  from  the  sea.  When  she  settles  on  the 
masthead,  Lemminkainen  attacks  her  with  a  sword,  but  in  such 
a  world  weapons  are  useless ;  and  she  is  defeated  only  when 
Vainamoinen  assaults  her  magically  with  a  rudder  and  an  oak-spar. 
Then  she  falls  down  and  her  company  with  her.1  In  traditional 
Finnish  poetry  the  superior  man  prevails  by  special  knowledge. 
He  is  the  representative  of  a  society  in  which  the  priest-magician 
is  a  very  important  person.  But  his  poetical  appeal  is  limited. 
He  does  not  stir  the  common  admiration  for  physical  prowess  to 
which  heroic  poetry  appeals. 

The  emancipation  of  heroic  poetry  from  the  ideal  of  the 
magician  can  be  illustrated  from  two  countries  near  Finland. 
The  indigenous  poetry  both  of  Esthonia  and  of  northern  Russia 
shows  some  resemblances  to  that  of  Finland  and  has  certain 
themes  and  stories  in  common.  But  neither  in  Finland  nor  in 
Russia  is  the  magician  the  chief  character.  He  may  once  have 
been,  but  he  has  been  superseded  by  the  real  hero.  The  Russian 
poems  come  near  to  the  Finnish  when  they  tell  of  the  primitive 
hero,  Volga,  who  can  change  his  shape  into  a  pike  in  the  sea, 
a  falcon  in  the  sky,  and  a  wolf  on  the  plain,  and  outwits  the 
Turkish  Tsar  by  becoming  a  grey  wolf  which  kills  his  horses 
and  an  ermine  which  ruins  his  weapons.2  This  is  quite  in  the 
Finnish  manner  and  suggests  that,  even  if  Volga  is  a  distant  version 
of  some  historical  hero  like  Oleg,  he  has  taken  on  some  char- 
acteristics of  magicians  like  Vainamoinen.  But  Volga  is  not  merely 
or  primarily  a  magician.  He  uses  his  gifts  to  fight  for  his  country 
and  has  some  marks  of  a  mediaeval  prince,  when  he  collects  a 
band,  druzhina,  of  faithful  companions,  in  which  he  is  the  "  elder 
brother  "  among  "  younger  brothers  ",  with  whom  he  hunts  and 
fishes,  sees  that  tribute  is  properly  paid,  punishes  those  who  destroy 

1  Kalevala,  xliii,  99  ff.  2  Rybnikov,  i,  p.  10  ff. 

92 


THE  HERO 

bridges,  and  organises  the  defence  of  his  country  against  foreign 
enemies.  In  Volga  the  older  type  of  the  magician  passes  into  the 
true  hero  but  still  keeps  some  of  the  earlier  characteristics. 

In  the  Esthonian  lays,  which  Kreutzwald  incorporated  into  the 
Kalevipoeg,  the  emancipation  is  more  conscious  and  more  emphatic 
than  in  the  Russian  poems  on  Volga.  The  chief  hero  is  the 
Kalevipoeg,  or  son  of  Kalev,  known  in  the  Kalevala  as  Kullervo. 
His  father  Kalev  seems  to  be  an  authentic  hero,  since  it  is  possible 
that  he  is  the  same  as  Gaelic,  whom  Widsith  makes  king  of  the 
Finns.1  The  Kalevipoeg  himself  is  a  giant  of  prodigious  strength, 
but,  though  what  he  does  is  quite  beyond  ordinary  men,  he 
succeeds  by  the  superabundance  of  his  human  gifts.  His  chief 
enemies  are  sorcerers  and  magicians.  His  mother,  Linda,  is 
carried  off  by  a  Finnish  sorcerer  whose  suit  she  has  rejected.  The 
Kalevipoeg  goes  to  Finland  and  slays  the  sorcerer  after  a  great 
fight  against  whole  armies  of  men  whom  the  sorcerer  creates  by 
blowing  feathers.  In  this  encounter  physical  prowess  meets 
magical  powers  and  defeats  them  by  force  of  arm.  The  difference 
between  Esthonian  and  Finnish  ideals  can  be  seen  from  the 
treatment  of  Kullervo  in  the  Kalevala.  His  character  and  powers 
are  very  much  the  same  as  in  the  Kalevipoeg,  but  he  is  held  up  to 
ridicule  as  a  poor  creature  who  lacks  intelligence  and  comes  to  a 
proper  end  when  he  kills  himself  on  his  own  sword.  Vaina- 
moinen  passes  judgment  on  him  as  one  who  has  been  badly 
brought  up  : 

"  Never,  people,  in  the  future, 
Rear  a  child  in  crooked  fashion, 
Rocking  them  in  stupid  fashion, 
Soothing  them  to  sleep  like  strangers. 
Children  reared  in  crooked  fashion, 
Boys  thus  rocked  in  stupid  fashion, 
Grow  not  up  with  understanding, 
Nor  attain  to  man's  discretion, 
Though  they  live  till  they  are  aged, 
And  in  body  well-developed."  z 

The  Esthonian  poets  treat  of  Kullervo's  death  in  a  different  spirit. 
They  too  tell  that  he  is  killed  by  his  own  sword,  on  which  he  has 
set  a  curse  that  it  may  kill  his  enemy,  the  sorcerer,  but  when  instead 
it  kills  himself,  it  only  helps  to  show  how  unheroic  and  dis- 
tasteful magic  is.  The  hero  ought  not  to  have  used  it,  and  since 
he  has,  it  brings  ruin. 

The  process  of  change  from  a  shamanistic  to  a  purely  heroic 


)  20,  with  Chambers'  note. 
2  Kalevala,  xxxvii,  351-60. 

93 


HEROIC  POETRY 

outlook  may  be  seen  in  some  Yakut  poems  in  which  the  chief 
characters  are  shamans,  but  none  the  less  heroic.  They  need 
magic  because  their  opponents  are  usually  demons  or  sorcerers, 
but  when  it  comes  to  the  final  test,  it  is  physical  prowess  that  tells, 
as  when  Er  Sogotokh  fights  with  Nyurgun  : 

They  rushed  at  one  another  with  hands  outstretched. 
They  began  to  cut  one  another  with  their  hands. 
The  clatter  was  like  the  roll  of  thunder  in  a  storm. 
They  shot  out  their  hands  and  hammered  one  another 
With  fists  on  the  ribs. 
From  that  fight  a  lion  wept,  they  say  ; 
Hail  and  snow  began  to  fall,  they  say ; 
The  thick  wood  was  bowed,  they  say.1 

In  another  poem  the  chief  characters  are  two  women,  who  have 
shamanistic  powers,  Uolumar  and  Aigyr.  If  they  are  not  of  the 
calibre  of  Guthrun  or  accustomed  to  use  men's  weapons  as  she 
does,  they  are  certainly  courageous  and  adventurous,  when  they 
are  harried  and  carried  off  by  evil  spirits,  face  the  king  of  the 
dead,  and  by  a  mixture  of  craft  and  bravery  win  their  freedom 
and  are  restored  to  their  homes,  where  their  valour  is  rewarded  by 
the  birth  of  sons  who  do  great  deeds.2  The  Yakut  poets  belong 
to  a  world  where  the  shaman  is  still  an  important  person  who 
guides  the  religious  and  even  the  social  life  of  the  tribe.  They 
are  therefore  not  likely  to  pour  contempt  on  him,  but  they  are 
conscious  enough  of  heroic  worth  to  attribute  it  even  to  women 
who  practise  magic.  They  see  that,  in  violent  action,  strength  and 
courage  are  in  the  end  more  creditable  than  supernatural  gifts. 

Once  a  society  conceives  of  the  hero  as  a  human  being  who 
possesses  to  a  notable  degree  gifts  of  body  and  mind,  the  poets 
tell  how  he  makes  his  career  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave.  He  is  a 
marked  man  from  the  start,  and  it  is  only  natural  to  connect  his 
superiority  with  unusual  birth  and  breeding.  The  greatest  heroes 
are  thought  to  be  so  wonderful  that  they  cannot  be  wholly  human 
but  must  have  something  divine  about  them.  So  Gilgamish  is 
"  two-thirds  divine  and  one-third  human  ",  and  his  companion, 
Enkidu,  though  not  of  divine  lineage,  is  made  of  the  desert  clay 
by  the  goddess  Aruru  to  be  the  double  of  Ninurta,  the  god  of 
war.  Achilles,  as  he  is  proud  to  point  out  to  lesser  men  than 
himself,3  is  the  son  of  a  goddess.  So  too  is  the  Trojan,  Aeneas  ;  4 
and  in  the  previous  generation  Heracles  was  the  son  of  Zeus, 
as  was  also  Perseus.  Asiatic  heroes  are  often  born  in  strange 

1  Yastremski,  p.  28.  2  Idem,  pp.  122-54. 

3  //.  xxi,  109.  4  Ibid,  xx,  208  ff. 

94 


THE  HERO 

circumstances.  The  Nart  Uryzmag  is  born  at  the  bottom  of  the 
sea,1  while  Batrazd  is  born  from  a  woman  who  has  been  kept  a 
virgin  in  a  high  tower.2  The  Armenian  Bagdasar  and  Sanasar  are 
born  because  their  mother  drinks  of  a  magical  spring.3  Other 
heroes,  like  the  Kara-Kirghiz  Manas  and  the  Uzbek  Alpamys,  are 
born  when  their  fathers  are  far  advanced  in  years,  and  the  births 
are  regarded  as  the  direct  work  of  the  gods  in  answer  to  prayer. 
A  particularly  elaborate  case  of  this  is  the  Canaanite  Aqhat,  whose 
father  conducts  a  watch  of  seven  days  and  nights  in  the  sanctuary 
of  Baal,  with  the  result  that  Baal  intercedes  with  the  supreme  god, 
El,  and  in  due  course  Aqhat  is  born.4 

Whatever  a  hero's  birth  may  be,  and  of  course  it  is  often 
natural  enough,  he  is  recognised  from  the  start  as  an  extraordinary 
being  whose  physical  development  and  characteristics  are  not 
those  of  other  men.  There  is  about  him  something  foreordained, 
and  omens  of  glory  accompany  his  birth./  When  Helgi  Hundings- 
bane  is  born,  two  ravens  say  : 

"  In  mailcoat  stands      the  son  of  Sigmund, 

A  half-day  old  ;      now  day  is  here  ; 

His  eyes  flash  sharp      as  the  heroes'  are, 

He  is  friend  of  the  wolves  ;      full  glad  we  are."  5 

In  the  same  spirit  the  Kara-Kirghiz,  Alaman  Bet,  who  is  by  birth  a 
Chinese,  tells  of  the  signs  that  accompanied  his  birth  : 

"  When  I  came  out  of  the  womb, 
I  frightened  the  lamas  with  my  cries, 
I  cried  out,  it  seems,  '  Islam  !  ' 
When  I  was  lifted  up  from  the  ground, 
A  red  flame  flashed  forth  from  it."  6 

When  Manas  is  born,  his  delighted  father  gives  a  feast  at  which 
the  guests  prophesy  a  great  future  for  the  child,  saying  that  he 
will  overcome  devils  and  Chinese.  While  still  in  the  cradle,  Manas 
begins  to  speak,  and  his  father  gives  him  a  horse,  proclaiming  that 
he  is  ready  to  mount  it.7  When  Heracles  is  still  in  swaddling 
bands,  he  strangles  the  two  snakes  which  Hera  sends  to  kill  him.8 
The  hero's  career  begins  early  and  shows  what  kind  of  a  man  he 
is  going  to  be. 

Once  born,  the  hero  grows  apace  in  strength  and  stature./  So 
the  Armenian  poets  have  a  formula  for  his  development : 

1  Dume'zil,  p.  24  ff.  2  Idem,  p.  50  ff. 

3  David  Sasunskii,  p.  11  ff.  4  Caster,  p.  270  ff. 

5  Helgakvitha  Hundingsbana,  i,  6.  6  Manas,  p.  175. 

7  Radlov,  v,  p.  2  ff. 

8  Pindar,  Nem.  i,  37  ff.,  presumably  from  an  epic  source. 

95 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Other  children  grow  by  years, 
But  David  grew  by  days  ; J 

and  show  what  infant  prodigies,  like  Sanasar  and  Bagdasar,  are  in 
fact  like  : 

The  children  grew  from  day  to  day. 

They  were  one  year  old 

But  like  boys  of  five  years. 

They  went  out  to  play  with  children, 

But  they  fought  the  children,  beat  them,  and  made  them  cry. 

When  only  five  or  six  years  had  passed, 

Sanasar  and  Bagdasar 

Were  strong  sturdy  men.2 

The  Greek,  Digenis  Akritas,  is  of  the  same  breed  : 

When  one  year  old,  he  seized  a  sword  ;   when  two,  he  took  a  lance  up. 
And  when  he  was  but  three  years  old,  men  took  him  for  a  soldier. 
He  went  abroad,  men  talked  to  him,  of  no  man  was  he  frightened. 3 

Digenis  mounts  his  horse,  goes  off  to  the  mountains,  and  defies 
the  Saracens,  whom  he  routs  in  feats  of  strength  and  whose  horses 
he  takes.  If  human  beings  are  not  available,  the  young  hero  may 
impress  his  personality  on  natural  things  and  animals,  as  the 
Russian  Volga  does  : 

When  Volga  Buslavlevich  was  five  years  old, 

Lord  Volga  Busiavlevich  went  forth  over  the  damp  earth  ; 

Damp  mother  earth  was  rent. 

The  wild  beasts  fled  away  to  the  forests, 

The  birds  flew  away  to  the  clouds  ; 

And  the  fish  scattered  in  the  blue  sea.4 

A  life  so  begun  comes  rapidly  to  its  crisis.  Manas,  after  his 
portentous  start,  soon  moves  to  a  life  of  action.  At  ten  he  shoots 
an  arrow  as  well  as  a  boy  of  fourteen,  and  soon  afterwards  he  is  a 
full-fledged  warrior  : 

When  he  grew  to  be  a  prince,  he  overthrew  princely  dwellings  ; 

Sixty  stallions,  a  hundred  three-year-old  foals 

He  drove  thither  from  Kokand  ; 

Eighty  young  mares,  a  thousand  kymkar 

He  brought  from  Bokhara  ; 

The  Chinese  settled  in  Kashgar 

He  drove  away  to  Turfan  ; 

The  Chinese  settled  in  Turfan 

He  drove  yet  farther  to  Aksu.s 

1  David  Sasunskii,  p.  142.  z  Ibid.  p.  15  ff. 

3  Legrand,  p.  187.  4  Gilferding,  ii,  p.  172. 

5  Radlov,  v,  p.  6  ;  a  "  kymkar  "  must  be  some  kind  of  horse. 

96 


THE   HERO 

At  fifteen  the  Armenian  Mher  strangles  a  lion  with  his  own  hands  ;  ] 
at  sixteen  the  Kalmuck  Dzhangar  steals  the  horses  of  an  enemy  ;  2 
at  fourteen  the  Uzbek  Alpamys  invades  the  country  of  the  Kal- 
mucks.3 The  hero  breaks  records  from  the  start  and  is  a  fully- 
grown  man  when  others  are  still  boys. 

The  hero  possesses  those  gifts  of  body  and  character  which 
bring  success  in  action  and  are  admired  for  that  reason.  He  may 
be  strong  or  swift  or  enduring  or  resourceful  or  eloquent.  Not  all 
heroes  possess  the  whole  gamut  of  these  qualities  but  all  have 
some  portion  of  them,  and  what  matters  is  less  their  range  of  gifts, 
than  the  degree  in  which  they  have  one  or  other  of  them.  A  hero 
differs  from  other  men  by  his  peculiar  force  and  energy.  Just  as 
the  Greeks  define  him  as  one  who  has  a  special  St'm/u?  or  power, 
so  in  all  countries  he  has  an  abundant,  overflowing,  assertive  force, 
which  expresses  itself  in  action,  especially  in  violent  action,  and 
enables  him  to  do  what  is  beyond  ordinary  mortals.  This  is 
commonly  displayed  in  battle,  because  battle  provides  the  most 
searching  tests  not  merely  of  strength  and  courage  but  of  resource 
and  decision.  The  greatest  heroes  are  primarily  men  of  war. 
But  even  in  battle  what  really  counts  is  the  heroic  force,  the 
assertive  spirit  which  inspires  a  man  to  take  prodigious  risks  and 
enables  him  to  surmount  them  successfully  or  at  least  to  fail  with 
glorious  distinction.  Their  peculiar  drive  and  vigour  explains 
why  heroes  are  often  compared  to  wild  animals,  as,  for  instance, 
the  Uzbek  warriors  are  compared  to  lions,  tigers,  bears,  leopards, 
wolves,  and  hyenas,4  or  Homeric  warriors  are  compared  to 
vultures,  lions,  boars,  and  the  like,  while  Achilles  himself  is  like 
some  irresistible  power  of  nature,  compared  in  turn  to  a  river 
in  spate,  a  flaming  star,  a  vulture  swooping  on  its  prey,  a  fire 
burning  a  wood  or  a  city,  an  eagle  dropping  to  seize  a  lamb  or  a 
kid.  Hector  knows  what  this  power  means,  when  he  decides  to 
fight  him  : 

"  Him  will  I  face  in  the  fight,  though  his  hands  are  as  fire  that 

consumeth, 
Hands  are  as  fire  that  consumeth,  his  might  like  glittering  iron.'*  s 

This  is  the  essential  hero  in  his  irresistible  onslaught  and  power 
to  destroy. 

These  qualities  are  seen  at  their  keenest  when  a  hero's  temper 
is  high  and  his  thoughts  turn  to  prowess.  The  mere  prospect  of  a 
fight  is  enough  to  inflame  his  passions  and  make  him  burn  for 

1   David  Sasunskii,  p.  107  ff.  *  Zhirmunskii-Zarifov,  p.  321. 

3  Idem,  p.  323.  4  Idem,  p.  306.  5  //.  xx,  371-2. 

97 


HEROIC  POETRY 

action,  as  the  Serb  hero,  Milos  Stoidevic,  does  when  he  goes  out 
to  fight  the  Moslems  : 

"  I  am  going  as  my  war-horse  wishes  ! 
For  my  steed  is  thirsting  for  the  struggle, 
And  in  my  right  arm  the  strength  is  welling, 
Gladly  would  it  sport  awhile  with  Moslems  ; 
At  my  belt  my  sword  for  blood  is  thirsting, 
It  is  thirsting  for  the  blood  of  heroes  ; 
I  must  quench  the  deep  thirst  of  my  sabre, 
Quench  it  with  the  blood  of  Turkish  heroes."  * 

The  same  spirit  is  present  even  in  the  Kalevala,  though  it  is 
displayed  in  Kullervo,  whom  the  poets  despise.  When  he  sets  out 
for  war,  he  exults  in  anticipation  of  it  : 

"  If  I  perish  in  the  battle, 
Sinking  on  the  field  of  battle, 
Fine  mid  clash  of  swords  to  perish, 
Exquisite  the  battle-fever."  2 

When  a  fight  begins,  heroes  deliver  blows  with  astounding  force 
and  an  almost  delirious  delight.  The  friendship  of  Gilgamish  and 
Enkidu  begins  with  a  tremendous  struggle  between  them  in  which 
each  shows  a  prodigious  energy  : 

Enkidu  barred  the  door  with  his  foot, 

He  would  not  allow  entry  to  Gilgamish. 

They  grappled  and  snorted  like  bulls  ; 

The  threshold  was  shattered,  the  wall  quivered, 

As  Gilgamish  and  Enkidu  grappled,  snorting  like  bulls, 

The  threshold  was  shattered,  the  wall  quivered.3 

When  Roland  sees  the  Saracens  before  him,  he  becomes  like  a  wild 

beast : 

When  Roland  sees  that  now  must  be  combat, 
More  fierce  he's  found  than  lion  or  leopard.* 

Such  a  spirit  can  spread  to  a  whole  company  when  the  call  is 
strong  enough  and  a  desperate  situation  calls  for  desperate  courage. 
So  the  Greeks  fought  at  Missolonghi  when  it  was  besieged  by  the 
Turks  in  1822  : 

The  mariners  are  fighting  with  cannons  and  blunderbuses, 
The  others  have  unsheathed  their  swords  and  fight  with  naked  iron, 
The  merchants  and  the  artisans  are  fighting  like  mad  serpents, 
They  fire  their  rifles  fearfully,  they're  armed  with  long  sharp  daggers. 

1  Karadzic,  iv,  p.  200.    Trs.  W.  A.  Morison. 

2  Kalevala,  xxxvi,  28-32.  3  Gilgamish,  n,  vi,  10-15. 
4  Roland,  mo-ii. 


THE  HERO 

Never  a  thought  they  give  to  death,  they  hurl  themselves  like  lions, 
They  cry  and  call  upon  the  Turks  and  mock  at  them  with  laughter, 
They  only  wait  for  help  to  come  to  fall  on  them  and  break  them.1 

The  vitality  of  heroes  sharpens  their  lust  for  battle  and  turns  into 
a  superhuman  fury  and  frenzy. 

The  power  which  heroes  display  in  action  can  be  felt  in  their 
mere  presence.  When  they  appear,  other  men  know  them  for 
superior  beings  and  wonder  who  they  are.  So  when  the  Uzbek 
hero,  Alpamys,  first  meets  the  Kalmuck,  Karadzhan,  who  is  to 
become  his  devoted  friend,  Karadzhan  says  : 

"  Your  beauty  is  like  the  moon  in  the  skies, 

Your  brows  1  compare  to  a  bent  bow, 

In  shape  you  are  like  a  grey-blue  hawk, 

As  you  sit  there,  loosening  your  reins,  you  are  like  a  lord  who 

has  countless  sheep. 
Beautiful  lord,  whither  are  you  going  ? 
From  what  rare  diamond  were  you  fashioned  ? 
Such  a  warrior  as  you  could  not  be  born  from  a  human  mother. 
From  what  nest  did  you  wend  your  flight  ?  "  2 

Alpamys  belongs  to  the  class  of  heroes,  like  Achilles  and  Sigurth, 
who  are  eminent  for  their  beauty.  But  beauty  is  not  necessary  to 
heroes.  .  It  is  not  attributed  to  Roland  or  Beowulf  or  Manas. 
Some  heroes,  like  Odysseus,  may  be  undeniably  fascinating  but 
short  in  stature  and  stout  in  build.  A  hero's  appearance  reveals 
his  essential  superiority  and  difference  from  other  men.  There  is 
something  about  it  which  reveals  unusually  strong  fires  within. 
Divine  blood  may  sometimes  help,  but  it  too  is  not  essential.  It 
is  their  superabundance  of  life  which  marks  heroes  out  as  it 
shines  from  their  eyes  or  betrays  itself  in  their  gestures  or  their 
voices.  So  the  Kalmuck  poet  describes  Dzhangar  : 

His  moustaches  are  almost  like  eagles'  wings, 

The  look  of  his  black  magical  eyes 

Is  that  of  a  gerfalcon  ready  to  pounce.3 

The  Kara-Kirghiz  Manas  is  of  the  same  breed  and  strikes  equal  awe 
when  his  passions  are  aroused  : 

The  look  changed  on  Manas'  face. 

In  his  eyes  a  furnace  blazed. 

A  living  dragon  it  was.  .  .  . 

His  look  was  like  the  midnight's  look, 

Angry  as  a  cloudy  day. 4 

1  Legrand,  p.  130.  2  Zhirmunskii-Zarifov,  p.  309. 

3  Dzhangariada,  p.  97.  Manas,  p.  54. 

99 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Sometimes  a  fearful  appearance  is  combined  with  a  voice  whose 
tones  strike  silence  and  dismay.  When  Ivan  the  Terrible  is 
enjoying  himself  at  a  banquet,  his  actions  are  formidable  in  their 
very  triviality  : 

The  terrible  Tsar,  Ivan  Vasilevich,  was  making  merry, 

He  walked  through  his  apartments, 

He  looked  through  his  glazed  window, 

He  combed  his  black  curls  with  a  small-toothed  comb. 

When  he  opens  his  mouth  and  announces  that  in  all  his  realm 
there  are  no  more  traitors,  the  effect  is  appalling : 

Then  they  trembled  before  him, 

His  subjects  were  terrified, 

They  could  not  think  of  an  answer. 

The  taller  of  them  hid  behind  the  smaller, 

And  the  smaller  for  their  part  were  speechless.1 

Against  this  modest,  untutored  effect  we  may  set  the  magnificent 
scene  in  the  Iliad  when  Achilles,  having  decided  to  go  back  to 
battle,  stands  on  the  rampart  and  raises  his  battle-cry  three  times  : 

Then  were  the  chariot-drivers  astounded,  who  saw  the  unwearied 
Flame  burn  over  the  head  of  Peleus'  son,  the  great-hearted, 
Terribly,  for  it  was  lit  by  the  grey-eyed  goddess  Athene. 
Three  times  over  the  rampart  Achilles  shouted  his  war-cry, 
Three  times  Trojans  and  allies  were  sheer  amazed  and  confounded. 
There  and  then  were  destroyed  twelve  men,  most  noble  of  Trojans, 
Mid  their  chariots  and  spears.2 

The  fear  and  destruction  caused  by  the  mere  sight  of  Achilles  and 
the  sound  of  his  voice  are  a  sign  of  the  tremendous  force  in  him. 
Though  physical  strength  is  an  essential  part  of  a  hero's  endow- 
ment, he  is  no  animal  or  devoid  of  wits.  On  the  contrary,  since 
wits  are  another  sign  that  he  surpasses  other  men,  there  is  nothing 
discreditable  in  their  use  to  secure  some  glorious  end.  Though 
direct  action  might  be  more  impressive,  there  are  many  occasions 
when  it  is  impossible.  At  the  lowest  level  it  might  be  argued  that 
since  the  hero's  chief  aim  is  to  exert  his  own  will  and  get  what 
he  wants  there  is  no  reason  why  he  should  not  use  guile.  When 
Manas  fights  Er  Kokcho,  he  wins  the  first  round  in  a  wrestling 
match  ;  then  Er  Kokcho  proposes  a  firing  of  flint-locks,  and  Manas 
misses  him,  while  Er  Kokcho  hits  Manas,  who  flies  away  wounded 
on  his  horse.  When  Er  Kokcho  chivalrously  tries  to  heal  Manas' 
wound,  Manas  turns  and  kills  his  opponent's  horse.3  This  is  not 
fair  play,  but  is  accepted  on  the  principle  that  all  is  permissible 

1   Kireevski,  vi,  p.  55  ;    Chadwick,  R.H.P.  p.  194. 
2  //.  xviii,  225-31.  3  Radlov,  v,  p.  72. 

100 


THE  HERO 

in  war.  In  fact  there  may  be  behind  it  another  assumption,  that  a 
hero  like  Manas  is  so  great  that  he  is  entitled  to  exert  his  powers 
as  he  chooses.  There  are  other  cases  of  this  kind,  notably  Mher 
the  Younger  in  Armenia,  but  they  are  not  common  and  certainly 
not  the  general  rule.  Normally,  when  the  hero  uses  guile,  he 
does  so  because  it  is  quite  as  dangerous  as  force  and  is,  in  the 
given  conditions,  the  only  possible  means  of  action. 

Craft  and  stratagem  have  their  own  dangers,  as  Abu  Zeyd,  the 
hero  of  The  Stealing  of  the  Mare,  illustrates  in  a  high  degree. 
He  is  a  formidable  man  of  action,  whom  no  one  can  withstand  in 
open  fight,  but  for  this  particular  task,  the  theft  of  a  carefully 
guarded  mare,  craft  is  the  only  possible  means,  and  justifiable 
because  the  undertaking  is  extremely  hazardous  and  discovery 
means  death.  Abu  Zeyd  enters  into  his  plot  with  all  the  bold 
spirit  and  love  of  adventure  which  he  shows  on  the  battlefield, 
and  the  high  level  of  his  cunning  is  merely  another  example  of 
his  heroic  superiority.  The  same  may  be  said  of  Alaman  Bet's 
brilliant  adventure  at  the  house  of  the  sorceress  Kanyshai.  When 
he  disguises  himself  as  a  Chinese  and  walks  boldly  into  her 
quarters  in  the  middle  of  a  feast,  he  is  alone  and  a  stranger,  but 
he  succeeds  by  the  very  effrontery  of  his  stratagem.  No  doubt 
the  same  would  be  true  of  the  lost  Greek  poem  which  told  how 
Odysseus  disguised  himself  as  a  beggar  and  went  into  Troy  as  a 
spy ;  and  even  the  inmates  of  the  Wooden  Horse,  with  all  their 
ingenuity  and  cunning,  did  not  lack  a  great  element  of  courage 
in  being  willing  to  risk  their  lives  if  they  were  discovered  in  the 
city  of  their  enemies.  Perhaps  the  most  authentic  heroes  are 
above  even  stratagems  so  dangerous  as  these.  We  somehow  can- 
not imagine  that  they  would  appeal  to  Achilles  or  Gilgamish  or 
Sigurth  or  Roland.  But  the  men  who  practise  them  are  warriors 
of  high  eminence,  who  resort  to  guile  because  they  must.  Even  so 
their  courage  is  needed  throughout. 

Of  heroes  famed  for  resource  Odysseus  is  the  most  complete. 
He  too  is  a  great  warrior  and  leader,  who  uses  cunning  to  get 
himself  out  of  difficulties  into  which  his  headstrong  taste  for 
adventure  has  led  him.  The  classical  case  of  his  resourcefulness 
is  his  handling  of  the  Cyclops.  The  one-eyed  giant  who  holds 
Odysseus  in  his  cave  and  then  decides  to  eat  him  is  an  opponent 
against  whom  any  stratagem  is  fair,  but  Odysseus'  predicament  is 
the  fruit  of  his  insatiable  curiosity  and  desire  for  new  experiences. 
There  is  no  need  to  enter  the  cave,  but  Odysseus  wishes  to  know 
who  lives  in  it  on  the  lonely  island,  and  hopes  for  a  gift  from  the 
owner.  Once  caught,  he  shows  the  full  range  of  his  talents,  and 

TOI 


HEROIC  POETRY 

his  escape  is  a  masterpiece  of  imaginative  improvisation.  It  is 
interesting  to  compare  Homer's  version  of  Odysseus  and  the 
Cyclops  with  Ossete  stories  of  Uryzmag  and  the  one-eyed  giant, 
which  have  much  in  common  with  it.  The  Ossete  hero  is  trapped 
for  reasons  which  do  him  nothing  but  credit.  He  has  gone  out  in 
search  of  food  for  the  Narts,  who  are  suffering  from  famine,  and 
finds  the  giant  pasturing  his  flock.  Uryzmag  lays  hold  of  the 
ram,  but  it  makes  off  with  him  to  the  giant,  who  puts  him  in  a 
bag  and  takes  him  into  the  cave.1  In  another  version  the  Narts 
boast  against  each  other  about  which  of  them  is  bravest,  and  the 
result  is  that  Uryzmag  attacks  the  giant's  flock  and  follows  it 
into  the  cave.2  In  both  versions  Uryzmag  behaves  in  a  heroic 
manner  for  noble  reasons,  but  his  motives  are  simpler  than  those 
of  Odysseus  and  his  fate  is  less  intimately  connected  with  his 
character.  Once  in  the  cave,  he  acts  much  as  Odysseus  does  and 
is  fully  entitled  to  honour  for  extracting  himself  from  a  desperate 
situation. 

Though  most  heroes  are  moved  by  similar  motives  and  act  in 
similar  fashion,  there  is  much  variety  in  the  ends  to  which  their 
actions  are  devoted.  Though  the  hero's  first  and  most  natural 
need  is  to  display  his  prowess  and  win  the  glory  which  he  feels 
to  be  his  right,  he  is  ready  to  do  so  for  some  cause  which  does 
not  immediately  concern  his  personal  interest  but  attracts  him 
because  it  gives  him  a  chance  to  show  his  worth.  This  cause 
need  not  be  very  concrete.  Indeed  with  some  of  the  greatest 
heroes  it  is  simply  an  ideal  of  manhood  and  prowess  to  which  he 
feels  that  he  must  devote  his  life.  This  is  what  guides  Sigurth. 
Though  he  is  bound  by  ties  of  loyalty  to  Gunnar  and  serves  him 
honourably,  the  centre  of  his  being  is  the  conception  of  manhood 
which  Gripir  prophesies  to  him  : 

"  With  baseness  never      thy  life  is  burdened, 
Hero  noble,      hold  that  sure  ; 
Lofty  as  long      as  the  world  shall  live, 
Battle-bringer,      thy  name  shall  be."  3 

Sigurth  accepts  this  destiny  and  acts  upon  it.  He  follows  his 
instinctive  ambition  to  be  a  great  warrior.  When  he  kills  Fafnir, 
he  tells  the  dying  monster  why  he  has  done  so  —  it  is  a  need  to 
show  his  prowess : 

"  My  heart  did  drive  me,      my  hand  fulfilled, 
And  my  shining  sword  so  sharp. "*• 

1  Dum£zil,  p.  44.  2  Dynnik,  p.  13  ff. 

3  Gripisspd,  23.  4  Fafntsmal,  6,  1-2. 

IO2 


THE  HERO 

This  desire  for  prowess  is  combined  with  other  noble  qualities, 
which  Gripir  also  foretells  : 

"  Free  of  gold-giving,      slow  to  flee, 
Noble  to  see,      and  sage  in  speech."  ! 

But  the  root  of  Sigurth's  heroic  nature  is  his  unquestioning,  un- 
faltering desire  to  prove  his  worth  to  the  utmost  limits  of  his 
capacity. 

Achilles  belongs  to  the  same  class.  Though  he  plays  the 
chief  part  in  the  Trojan  War,  which  is  fought  to  win  back  for 
Menelaus  the  wife  whom  Paris  has  abducted,  this  cause  means 
little  to  Achilles.  When  Agamemnon's  envoys  ask  him  to  return 
to  the  fight,  he  refuses,  and  one  of  his  reasons  is  that  he  does  not 
see  why  he  should  risk  his  life  for  another  man's  wife.  Then  he 
reveals  his  true  thoughts.  His  mother  has  told  him  that  he  has  a 
choice  of  two  destinies  :  he  can  either  stay  at  Troy  and  win  ever- 
lasting renown,  or  go  home  to  a  long  and  inglorious  old  age.2 
For  the  moment  he  hesitates,  but  in  the  end  he  chooses  the  first 
course  and  follows  the  promptings  of  his  heroic  nature  which 
regards  glory  as  the  right  aim  for  such  a  man  as  himself.  In  so 
doing  he  obeys  the  advice  which  his  father  once  gave  him  : 

Ever  to  seek  to  be  best  and  surpass  all  others  in  action.3 

It  is  true  that,  when  Achilles  goes  back  to  the  battle,  his  upper- 
most desire  is  to  avenge  the  death  of  Patroclus,  but  even  so  his 
heroic  nature  asserts  itself,  and  his  desire  for  vengeance  is  tran- 
scended in  his  desire  for  glory  as  he  exercises  his  physical  gifts 
and  tastes  the  joys  of  battle  and  victory.  He  slays  his  opponents 
with  a  triumphant  pride  and  mockingly  tells  them  that  he  is  a 
better  man  than  they.  As  he  makes  his  bloody  progress,  and  his 
chariot-wheels  are  bespattered  with  blood,  there  is  no  doubt  what 
weighs  most  with  him,  since  the  poet  says  that  "  the  son  of  Peleus 
sought  to  win  glory  ".4  Like  Sigurth,  Achilles  is  inspired  by  an 
ideal  of  manhood  which  he  thinks  that  he  can  realise  to  a  unique 
degree,  and  though  he  has  other  gifts  of  counsel,  courtesy,  and 
eloquence,  they  are  secondary  to  his  essential  and  dominating 
desire  to  be  a  great  warrior. 

The  desire  for  prowess  as  an  end  in  itself  may  be  illustrated 
by  a  remarkable  Ossete  poem  about  the  hero  Batradz,  who  is  so 
eager  to  be  the  ideal  and  perfect  warrior  that  he  applies  on  a 
strange  errand  to  the  divine  smith  Kurdalagon,  who  is  a  kind  of 

1   Gripisspd,  7,  3-4-  ~  ^-  ix»  4IG  ff- 

3  Ibid,  xi,  784.  4  Ibid,  xx,  502. 

103  H 


HEROIC  POETRY 

counterpart  to  Hephaestus.  The  poem  begins  by  showing  what 
kind  of  hero  Batradz  is  and  what  his  ambitions  are  : 

Once  Batradz  fell  strongly  a-thinking  : 

"  I  have  strength,  but  I  have  need  of  more, 

And  not  such  as  with  ill  luck  a  strong  man  will  overcome. 

Come,  it  is  better,  I  will  go  to  the  sky, 

I  will  ascend  the  sky,  go  straight  to  Kurdalagon, 

I  will  beseech  him  to  temper  me  !  " 

He  went  to  the  sky,  straight  to  Kurdalagon. 

To  him  Batradz  goes,  to  the  heavenly  forge. 

"  Heavenly  smith,  smith  Kurdalagon  ! 

Cast  me  on  the  furnace,  temper  me  on  the  forge  !  " 

"  Think  not  of  it,  and  dare  not  to  desire  it ; 

You  will  burn  up,  my  Sun,  and  I  have  pity  for  you  ; 

Much  delight,  young  man,  have  you  already  given  me/' 

"  No.    Such  is  my  need,  O  smith  Kurdalagon  ! 

I  beseech  you  with  a  great  prayer. 

Temper  me  on  the  heavenly  forge  !  " 

The  smith  agrees,  and  for  the  first  month  heats  the  coals,  for  the 
second  the  sand  of  the  river.  Then  he  beats  Batradz  on  the 
anvil  for  a  month,  and  at  the  end  of  it  thinks  that  he  must  be 
entirely  shrivelled  up,  but  Batradz  says  to  him : 

"  Your  fire  has  not  melted  me  even  a  little  ! 

What  game  are  you  playing  with  me,  smith  Kurdalagon  ? 

It  is  dull  alone  in  the  oven  with  nothing  to  do  ; 

Give  me  a  lyre,  to  amuse  myself  with  !  " 

Kurdalagon  gives  him  the  lyre,  heaps  up  the  coal,  and  sets  to 
work,  but  still  Batradz  remains  intact.  So  the  tempering  begins 
again,  and  when  Kurdalagon  takes  another  look,  Batradz  calls  out : 

"  At  last  you  have  tempered  me  !    How  uselessly 

you  continue  ! 

Take  me  quickly,  cast  me  into  the  sea  !  " 
And  the  heavenly  smith  takes  his  pincers, 
With  the  pincers  he  takes  the  Nart  by  his  knees, 
Cast  him  at  once  into  the  blue  sea. 
The  sea  foamed  and  hissed  and  bubbled, 
And  the  sea's  water  all  vanished  in  steam, 
The  sea  became  dry  that  very  day. 
So  the  body  of  Batradz  was  tempered, 
His  body  turned  to  blue  steel. 
Only  his  liver  remained  untempered  : 
No  water  touched  it,  all  vanished  in  steam. 
When  steel  Batradz  came  out  of  the  sea, 
Then  was  the  sea  filled  again  with  water.1 

1   Dynnik,  p.  33  ff. 
104 


THE  HERO 

Achilles,  according  to  Greek  legend,  was  made  proof  against 
weapons  when  his  mother  dipped  him  in  fire  l  or  ambrosia  2  or  the 
river  Styx  3 ;  Batradz  makes  himself  proof  by  a  more  exacting  and 
more  original  method  when  he  hands  himself  over  for  treatment 
by  the  divine  smith. 

Heroism  for  its  own  sake  is  perhaps  exceptional.  More 
commonly  heroes  devote  their  talents  to  some  concrete  cause 
which  provides  scope  for  action  and  an  end  to  which  they  can 
direct  their  efforts.  The  hero  is  usually  a  leader  of  men  and  feels 
an  obligation  towards  those  under  his  command.  It  is  therefore 
surprising  that  the  kings  of  heroic  story  are  often  hardly  heroic 
in  the  full  sense.  They  seem  so  burdened  with  responsibilities 
and  anxieties  that  they  cannot  display  a  full  measure  of  individual 
prowess,  Homer's  Agamemnon,  Hrothgar  in  Beowulf,  Charle- 
magne in  Roland,  and  Gunnar  in  the  Elder  Edda  are  impressive 
figures  but  lack  the  four-square  heroism  of  their  subordinates, 
Achilles,  Beowulf,  Roland,  and  Sigurth.\  The  mere  fact  of  being 
a  king  sometimes  detracts  from  a  man's  heroic  performance.  His 
duties  prevent  him  from  giving  all  his  attention  to  warlike  exploits  ; 
he  is  so  occupied  with  ruling  that  he  must  leave  the  greatest 
opportunities  to  others.  He  may  even  be  prevented  by  age  from 
acting  as  he  would  have  done  in  youth.,  Of  course,  when  occasion 
calls,  Agamemnon  and  Charlemagne  show  their  worth  in  battle, 
while  Gunnar's  last  hours  in  Atli's  halls  are  in  the  highest  heroic 
tradition.  On  the  other  hand  among  Asiatic  peoples  the  king  is 
often  the  greatest  warrior  of  all,  the  man  who  displays  in  himself 
all  the  finest  qualities  of  his  people.  So  Manas,  Dzhangar,  and 
Alpamys  stand  respectively  for  all  that  is  best  in  the  Kara- 
Kirghiz,  Kalmucks,  and  Uzbeks.  In  the  great  war  against  the 
Chinese,  it  is  Manas  who  in  the  end  takes  the  lead  and  attacks  the 
most  formidable  opponents ;  when  Dzhangar's  lands  are  invaded 
in  his  absence  by  an  enemy,  he  is  foremost  in  reconquering  them  ; 
Alpamys  wins  his  first  fame  by  leading  his  people  against  the 
Kalmucks.  Such  kings  belong  to  a  more  primitive  level  of 
society  than  their  European  counterparts,  and  that  is  perhaps 
why  they  are  allowed  to  exert  their  heroic  natures  to  the  full. 

There  are,  however,  occasions  even  in  Europe  when  the  king 
becomes  the  champion  of  his  people  and  exerts  his  heroic  powers 
for  it.  [Though  in  early  life  Beowulf  kills  Grendel  from  motives  of 
pure  heroism,  in  old  age  he  fights  the  dragon  in  a  different  spirit, 
to  save  his  people  from  a  deadly  pest.  He  agrees  at  once  to  their 

1   Schol.  //.  xvi,  37.  _       2  Ap.  Rhod.  iv,  869. 

3  Quint.  Smyrn.  iii,  62. 

105 


HEROIC  POETRY 

appeal  for  help  and  insists  on  fighting  the  monster  alone.  It  is 
his  last  fight,  and  he  dies  from  wounds  received  in  it.  That  is  why 
his  subjects  lament  him  as  they  do  : 

So  grieved  and  plained      the  Geatish  people 

For  their  Lord's  fall,      his  hearth -fellows  ; 

They  said  that  he  was      a  World-King, 

Of  men  the  mildest      and  to  men  kindest, 

To  his  people  most  pleasant      and  for  praise  most  eager. 

Another  king  who  gives  his  life  for  his  people  is  the  Serb,  Tsar 
Lazar,  who  is  killed  fighting  the  Turks  at  Kosovo.  It  is  he  who 
takes  the  decision  to  fight,  calls  on  every  Serb  to  join  his  army, 
gives  a  banquet  on  the  eve  of  the  battle,  and  dies  bravely  in  the 
struggle.  His  national  importance  is  recognised  after  his  death, 
when  his  headless  body  lies  uncorrupted  on  the  field  of  Kosovo 
for  forty  years  : 

Pecked  not  by  the  eagles  and  the  ravens, 
Trampled  not  by  horses  or  by  heroes,2 

until  the  head  is  miraculously  joined  to  it  and  the  remains  put  in 
a  shrine.  In  Tsar  Lazar  the  Serbs  have  a  type  of  their  own 
sufferings  and  sacrifices,  and  for  this  reason  he  has  a  special  place 
in  their  national  poetry. 

If  kings  do  not  often  hold  pride  of  place,  their  followers  and 
liegemen  do,  and  there  are  many  notable  examples  of  men  who 
perform  heroic  actions  out  of  loyalty  to  a  suzerain  or  sovereign. 
Though  Charlemagne  cuts  no  great  figure  in  Roland,  he  commands 
astonishing  loyalty  and  receives  wonderful  service.  Though 
Roland  does  not  shrink  from  disputing  the  Emperor's  decisions 
in  council,  in  the  end  he  obeys  them,  notably  when  he  is  told  to 
command  the  rear-guard  of  the  army,  though  he  knows  that  this 
is  due  to  Ganelon's  plot  to  encompass  his  death.  When  he  first 
receives  the  orders,  he  bursts  out  in  anger,  but  he  accepts  them 
none  the  less.  Once  he  has  undertaken  the  task,  honour  forbids 
him  to  ask  for  help,  and  that  is  why  he  refuses  to  blow  his  horn. 
He  feels  that  such  an  action  would  be  to  betray  his  overlord's 
trust  in  him : 

"  A  thousand  score  stout  men  he  set  apart, 
And  well  he  knows,  not  one  will  prove  coward. 
Man  for  his  lord  should  suffer  with  good  heart, 
Of  bitter  cold  and  great  heat  bear  the  smart, 
His  blood  let  drain,  and  all  his  flesh  be  scarred."3 

1  Beowulf,  3178-82.  2  Karadzic,  ii,  p.  296. 

3  Roland,  1115-19. 

1 06 


THE  HERO 

This  of  course  is  the  spirit  of  chivalry  as  the  twelfth  century 
conceived  it.  Roland  must  act  in  a  truly  feudal  spirit  to  his 
overlord,  but  that  does  not  prevent  him  from  being  a  complete 
hero. 

The  relative  positions  of  suzerain  and  hero  can  produce  their 
own  drama  of  personal  relations.  In  the  Kara-Kirghiz  poems  a 
special  interest  attaches  to  the  friendship  between  the  great  prince, 
Manas,  and  his  subordinate,  Alaman  Bet.  Alaman  Bet  is  by 
origin  a  Kalmuck  or  a  Chinese.  He  attaches  himself  to  Manas 
because  a  previous  attempt  to  serve  the  Uigur  prince,  Er  Kokcho, 
has  failed  through  the  envy  of  his  colleagues.1  He  chooses  Manas 
for  no  better  reason  than  to  find  a  career  of  adventure,  but,  once 
his  choice  is  made,  he  does  his  duty  with  such  loyalty  that  he  has 
a  very  special  place  in  Manas'  regard  and  affection.  The  degree 
of  Manas'  trust  in  him  is  showrn  by  what  Manas  says  to  his  captains 
before  the  start  of  the  great  expedition  : 

"  To  Alaman  Bet  alone  is  known 

The  distant  road  to  China. 

Let  him  be  our  guide, 

Let  him  enable  us  to  look 

On  China,  though  it  be  with  only  one  eye. 

If  he  falls  into  a  lake, 

We  shall  float  across  the  lake  after  him  ! 

If  he  moves  in  circles, 

In  circles  we  shall  go  after  him  ; 

If  he  hurls  himself  on  the  wind, 

On  the  wind  we  shall  fly  after  him. 

If  he  bristles  with  wild  beasts, 

We  shall  join  our  spears  after  him  ; 

If  suddenly  he  feels  sorrow, 

Then  we  shall  lament  with  him."  2 

Alaman  Bet  is  a  notable  example  of  the  heroic  subordinate  who 
shapes  his  life  in  the  service  of  a  master  and  is  rewarded  by  the 
trust  in  which  he  is  held. 

•  Another  cause  which  a  hero  may  serve  is  religion.  The  heroic 
temper  might  not  at  first  sight  seem  to  be  perfectly  attuned  to 
the  self-sacrificing  ideals  of  Christianity  and  Buddhism,  but  in 
practice  no  difficulty  arisesy  Roland  is  set  in  a  war  between  the 
Christian  paladins  of  Charlemagne  and  the  infidel  Saracens.  The 
Christian  spirit  is  often  present  and  does  much  for  the  action. 
The  Christians  fight  to  convert  the  infidels,  and  Charlemagne 
insists  on  the  baptism  of  the  captured  and  the  conquered.  He 
celebrates  Mass  and  Matins  in  his  camp,  and,  when  he  takes  the 

1  Radlov,  v,  p.  32  ff.  ;   cf.  p.  515.  2  Manas,  p.  83. 

107 


HEROIC  POETRY 

field  to  avenge  Roland's  death,  God  shows  His  favour  by  stopping 
the  sun  in  its  course.  This  faith  is  woven  into  the  heroic  scheme 
without  any  great  strain.  The  Christians  despise  and  hate  the 
infidels  for  their  worship  of  false  gods  and  their  lack  of  chivalry 
and  honour.  The  struggle  is  presented  as  between  right  and 
wrong,  truth  and  falsehood,  and  this  gives  an  emphatic  character 
to  the  issues  at  stake.  It  is  therefore  appropriate  that,  when  the 
Saracens  are  defeated,  they  should  turn  on  their  own  gods  and 
curse  them  as  useless  and  unrewarding,  and  on  the  other  hand 
that  the  Christians  should  be  confident  that  to  die  for  their  cause 
is  to  win  Paradise.  The  Archbishop,  Turpin,  has  no  doubts 
about  the  worthiness  of  the  issue  and,  before  the  battle  begins, 
tells  the  host : 

"  My  lords  barons,  Charles  left  us  here  for  this  ; 
He  is  our  King,  well  may  we  die  for  him  : 
To  Christendom  good  service  offering. 
Battle  you'll  have,  you  all  are  bound  to  it, 
For  with  your  eyes  you  see  the  Sarrazins. 
Pray  for  God's  grace,  confessing  Him  your  sins  ! 
For  your  souls'  health  I'll  absolution  give  ; 
So,  though  you  die,  blest  martyrs  shall  you  live, 
Thrones  you  shall  win  in  the  great  Paradis."  l 

He  then  gives  absolution  and  benediction,  and  the  fight  begins. 
Later,  when  Roland  is  stricken  to  death,  he  confesses  his  sins  and 
is  carried  by  angels  to  Paradise,  thus  reaping  the  reward  which  he 
has  himself  asked  for  the  dead  on  the  mountain-side  : 

"  Lords  and  Barons,  may  God  to  you  be  kind  ! 
And  all  your  souls  redeem  for  Paradise  ! 
And  let  you  there  mid  holy  flowers  lie  !  "  2 

The  scheme  is  clear  and  simple  and  fits  well  into  the  cult  of 
honour.  Roland  seeks  always  to  display  his  valour  because  he  is 
confident  that  he  acts  in  the  holiest  of  causes  and  that  the  glory 
which  he  desires  will  be  found  not  merely  in  the  memories  of 
men  but  in  heaven. 

No  other  religion  informs  its  poetry  with  so  complete  a 
scheme  as  this,  but  there  are  times  when  Islam  does  something 
like  it.  The  Kara-Kirghiz  heroes  are  Mohammedans  and  proud 
of  it.  It  is  true  that  they  seem  to  have  been  recently  converted, 
since  an  echo  of  this  survives  in  reference  to  the  Uigur  prince, 
Er  Kokcho  : 

Who  opened  the  doors  of  Paradise, 

Who  opened  the  closed  doors  of  the  bazaars.  3 

1  Roland,  1127-35.  *  Ibid.  1854-6.  3  Radlov,  v,  p.  18. 

108 


THE  HERO 

But,  like  other  converts,  the  Kara- Kirghiz  feel  some  contempt  for 
those  who  do  not  share  their  spiritual  advantages.  It  is  true  that 
they  disobey  the  Prophet  to  the  extent  of  drinking  brandy  on 
many  suitable  occasions,  but  their  own  laxity  does  not  affect  their 
habitual  reference  to  Buddhists  and  others  as  "  unclean  "  or  their 
shocked  disapproval  of  the  Kalmucks  as  men  "  who  cut  up  pork 
and  tie  it  on  saddles  ".  That  there  is  a  basis  of  religious  experi- 
ence behind  this  faith  is  clear  enough  from  Orozbakov's  account 
of  the  vision  of  Paradise  which  Alaman  Bet  learns  from  his  mother.1 
It  is  of  course  a  place  of  material  and  sensual  joys,  but  none  the 
less,  the  poet  implies,  worth  winning,  and  indeed  Alaman  Bet  is 
converted  to  Islam  by  the  prospect  of  it.  But  on  the  whole  the 
Mohammedan  faith  of  the  Kara- Kirghiz  has  little  of  the  crusading 
zeal  which  we  find  in  the  Christian  paladins  of  Roland.  It  is 
largely  a  national  and  racial  affair.  Though  Alaman  Bet  tactfully 
murmurs  the  word  "  Islam  "  as  soon  as  he  is  born  and  early 
embraces  the  faith,  he  does  not  feel  perfectly  at  home  among  the 
Kara-Kirghiz,  since  he  is  by  birth  a  Chinese,  and  complains  to 
Manas  : 

"  Those  who  are  born  of  Kirghiz  blood 

Cast  reproaches  at  me  because 

I  am  born  of  a  Chinese  stock. 

They  say  :   '  You  are  a  Kalmuck,  you, 

You  are  not  truly  one  of  us  ; 

No  true  believer  gives  to  you 

The  lofty  rights  that  we  possess. 

You  have  the  same  rights  as  a  slave, 

You're  not  our  brother,  despised  slave, 

You  are  a  heathen,  hypocrite  ! ' 

Such  the  abuse  they  cast  on  me."  2 

In  effect  the  Kara-Kirghiz  believe  that,  because  they  are  Moham- 
medans, they  are  more  civilised  and  more  heroic  than  Buddhists 
or  idolaters  and  belong  to  a  superior  order  of  manhood. 

On  the  other  hand,  though  the  Kara- Kirghiz  identify  their 
religion  with  their  national  pride,  they  are  more  tolerant  of  other 
faiths  than  are  the  Christians  of  Roland.  In  time  of  peace  they 
invite  Kalmucks  and  heathen  Kara-Nogai  to  their  festivals,  and  at 
the  feast  of  Bok-Murun  both  parties  mix  in  a  friendly  spirit,  though 
it  is  assumed  to  be  right  and  proper  that  in  the  games  the  Kara- 
Kirghiz  should  win  all  the  events.  So  too  in  war,  though  the 
struggle  may  be  indeed  bloody,  the  Kara- Kirghiz  respect  their 
enemies,  and  the  poets  present  them  in  an  almost  heroic  light. 
It  is  true  that  they  use  magic  to  protect  themselves,  which  the 

1  Manas,  p.  94.  2  Ibid.  p.  197. 

109 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Kara-Kirghiz  themselves  do  not,  and  that  some  of  their  leading 
figures  are  of  monstrous  size  and  shape.  None  the  less  it  takes 
all  the  efforts  of  the  Kara- Kirghiz  to  defeat  Mahdi-Khan  and 
Kongyr  Bai.  Moreover  the  poets  give  to  these  alien  chieftains 
sentiments  which  would  sound  well  on  the  lips  of  any  Kara- 
Kirghiz.  Though  Kongyr  Bai  may  begin  by  claiming  that  he  is 
safe  from  attack  because  of  his  magical  protections  : 

"  No  sword  frightens  us, 

And  nothing  terrifies  us. 

My  country  is  my  shield, 

My  mountain  is  my  defence. 

Live  ;  be  not  afraid  of  destruction  : 

Meet  your  death-hour  in  your  beds  'V 

yet  when  real  danger  faces  him,  he  rises  to  the  occasion  and  tells 
his  followers : 

"  If  death  is  our  fate,  we  shall  die. 

We  are  not  at  all  afraid  of  death  ! 

Did  you  come  here  only  to  have  a  look  ? 

Only  to  scare  the  foe  with  your  numbers  ?  "  2 

The  Kara- Kirghiz  must  have  adversaries  worthy  of  them  such  as 
the  Chinese  in  fact  are.  It  is  therefore  intelligible  that  the  most 
distinguished  warrior  in  the  Kara-Kirghiz  army,  Alaman  Bet,  is 
by  origin  a  Chinese. 

The  Kalmucks,  whom  the  Kara- Kirghiz  fight  and  despise  as 
unbelievers,  are  Buddhists,  and  the  spirits  and  saints  of  Buddhism 
receive  more  attention  in  the  Kalmuck  poems  than  do  the  Christian 
saints  in  Roland.  They  take  no  part  in  the  action,  but  their 
presence  in  the  background  is  emphasised  at  some  length,  and  the 
poems  usually  begin  with  a  tribute  to  the  visible  tokens  of  their 
power  in  Dzhangar's  mountainous  realm.  The  poet  insists  that  the 
faith  and  religious  standing  of  the  Kalmucks  is  beyond  reproach : 

The  four  seas  of  Shartak  are  theirs, 
Four  yellow  shrines  are  theirs, 
A  lama  is  theirs, 
A  manifest  Buddha  incarnate. 
The  Buddha's  blessings  are  theirs.3 

Of  this  faith  Dzhangar  is  the  representative  and  the  champion  : 

He  affirmed  the  universal  rule  like  a  rock, 

He  rejoiced  radiant  with  the  Buddhist  faith  like  a  sun .4 

1  Manas,  p.  248.  2  Ibid.  p.  334. 

3  Dzhangariada,  p.  95.  4  Ibid.  p.  142. 

110 


THE  HERO 

One  incarnation  of  the  Buddha  has  breathed  on  his  cheek; 
another  watches  over  him  as  he  sleeps.1  A  special  lama  looks 
after  him : 

The  lama  Alisha  watches  and  protects  his  arms  and  legs, 
His  pure  beautiful  breast, 
His  heart  like  a  young  moon, 
The  red  thread  of  his  life.2 

Inspired  by  an  exclusive  confidence,  Dzhangaf  and  his  com- 
panions are  in  every  way  convinced  that  they  have  divine  support 
and  that  their  war  against  the  vampire  people  of  the  Mangus  is  a 
war  between  those  whom  the  gods  love  and  those  whom  the  gods 
hate.  But,  though  the  Kalmuck  heroes  regard  themselves  as 
chosen  instruments  of  heaven,  they  are  recognisably  human  and 
act  as  heroes  usually  do,  following  their  desire  for  glory  in  a 
familiar  way.  Like  the  Kara- Kirghiz  they  have  so  strong  a  faith 
that  they  do  not  need  magic  but  are  able  to  get  what  they  want 
by  force  of  arms.  Their  religion  gives  them  an  inspiring  purpose 
in  battle,  but  they  are  primarily  moved  by  the  desire  for  glory. 

What  religion  does  in  these  cases  is  done  more  often  and 
more  easily  by  love  of  country.  In  many  cases  this  is  almost 
unconscious,  and  rises  to  the  surface  only  when  it  is  challenged. 
So  the  Uzbek  hero,  Yusuf,  tells  an  enemy  what  his  country  means 
to  him  : 

"  Our  country  is  a  good  country. 

The  winters  in  it  are  like  spring. 

Gardeners  watch  over  its  gardens, 

And  its  trees  are  rich  with  fruit. 

Its  old  women  rest  in  white  carts, 

But  the  young  busy  themselves  as  they  will. 

Maidens  and  youths  are  constant  in  love, 

Their  time  is  filled  with  joy  and  delights."  3 

Another  hero  says : 

"  My  country  is  my  life, 
My  country  is  my  soul."  4 

Such  feelings  are  common  enough,  and  it  is  only  natural  that  at 
times  heroes  should  share  them  and  fight  for  them.  He  who 
fights  and  dies  for  his  country  is  known  to  Homer  and  portrayed 
in  the  Iliad,  not  indeed  among  the  Achaeans,  who  fight  to  get 
back  Menelaus'  wife  from  Paris,  but  among  the  Trojans,  who 
fight  to  defend  their  city  and  their  homes.  Hector  is  the  earliest 
hero  who  exerts  all  his  powers  on  behalf  of  his  country.  When 

1  Ibid.  p.  96.  2  Ibid.  p.  146. 

3  Zhirmunskii-Zarifov,  p.  317.  4  Idem,  p.  317. 

Ill 


HEROIC  POETRY 

the  seer  Polydamas  tells  him  that  the  omens  are  hostile,  Hector 
defies  them  and  says  : 

"  Only  one  omen  is  best,  to  fight  in  defence  of  your  country."  I 

Later,  when  his  men  are  discouraged  and  seem  likely  to  abandon 
the  struggle,  Hector  appeals  to  them  in  the  language  of  pure 
patriotism  : 

"  All  of  you,  keep  to  the  fight  by  the  ships,  and  if  any  among  you, 
Struck  by  a  javelin  or  spear,  get  his  end  of  doom  and  destruction, 
So  let  him  die.    No  dishonour  is  it  to  fall  for  his  country, 
Leaving  behind  him  his  wife  and  his  children  alive  and  uninjured, 
Leaving  his  home  and  possessions  unharmed,  so  be  the  Achaeans 
Sail  away  hence  on  ships  to  the  much  loved  land  which  begat 
them."  2 

Hector  thinks  not  so  much  of  glory  as  of  home  and  family  and  city. 
In  his  heart  he  knows  that  Troy  will  fall,  but  none  the  less  he  is 
ready  to  do  all  that  he  can  to  avert  or  postpone  the  evil  day.  He 
acts  like  a  hero  and  has  a  glorious  triumph  when  he  comes  near 
to  burning  the  Achaean  ships.  But  he  hardly  thinks  of  displaying 
his  personal  prowess.  In  many  ways  the  most  human  and  most 
attractive  figure  in  the  Iliad,  he  is  not  its  chief  hero.  Homer  draws 
a  contrast  between  him  and  Achilles,  between  the  human  champion 
of  hearth  and  home  and  the  half-divine  hero  who  has  very  few 
ties  or  loyalties.  Perhaps  in  Hector  we  may  see  the  emergence  of 
a  new  ideal  of  manhood,  of  the  conception  that  a  man  fulfils  him- 
self better  in  the  service  of  his  city  than  in  the  satisfaction  of  his 
own  honour,  and  in  that  case  Hector  stands  on  the  boundary 
between  the  heroic  world  and  the  city-state  which  replaced  it.  Yet 
Hector  has  much  of  the  attractiveness  and  nobility  which  belong 
to  the  true  hero.  Inferior  as  he  is  to  Achilles  in  strength  and 
speed,  he  is  a  formidable  warrior  who  is  carried  on  by  his  impetu- 
ous might.  In  him  love  of  country  is  the  driving  motive,  but 
through  it  he  realises  a  destiny  which  is  certainly  heroic. 

A  hero,  conceived  as  Hector  is,  is  the  representative  of  his 
people,  their  spokesman  and  their  exemplar.  From  this  it  is  no 
long  step  to  finding  a  hero  not  in  a  great  prince  or  leader  but  in 
some  less  eminent  person  who  has  his  great  hour  in  a  crisis,  or  in  a 
group  of  persons  who  show  their  worth  when  their  country  is  in 
peril.  Such  is  the  case  with  the  Anglo-Saxon  Maldon,  in  which 
perhaps  the  chief  character  and  in  some  sense  the  hero  is  Byrhtnoth. 
It  is  he  who  gives  the  first  defiant  answer  to  the  Viking  invaders 
and  in  so  doing  speaks  for  his  king  and  country  : 

1  //.  xii,  243.  2  Ibid,  xv,  494-9. 

112 


THE  HERO 

"  Seamen's  messenger,      take  word  to  thy  masters, 

Tell  to  thy  people      more  hateful  tidings, 

That  here  stands  a  noble      earl  with  his  soldiers, 

Who  will  dare  to  stand      in  defence  of  this  land, 

Land  of  Aethelred,      lord  and  master, 

Its  people  and  soil."  l 

When  Byrhtnoth  is  killed,  his  comrades  maintain  his  defiant  spirit 
and  show  themselves  worthy  of  him.  Aelfwine  appeals  to  the 
men  to  fight  on  for  the  sake  of  their  dead  lord  and  to  justify 
boasts  made  in  the  past : 

"  Remember  what  time      at  the  mead  we  talked 
When  on  the  benches      our  boasts  we  made, 
Heroes  in  hall      of  the  hard  encounter  ; 
Now  may  be  kenned      whose  courage  avails."2 

In  turn  different  warriors,  Offa,  Lcofsunu,  and  Dunnere,  give 
support  to  this  call,  until  the  Old  Companion,  seeing  that  the  fight 
is  now  going  against  the  English,  speaks  in  the  ultimate  eloquence 
of  heroic  resistance,  as  he  calls  for  a  last  effort : 

"  Will  shall  be  harder,      heart  the  bolder, 
Mood  the  more,       as  our  might  lessens."  3 

In  fighting  for  their  country  the  men  of  Mahlon  are  moved  by  a 
truly  heroic  spirit  and  act  in  accordance  with  its  immemorial  rules. 
In  them  the  group  shows  the  old  pride  of  the  individual  and 
reveals  that  it  knows  what  is  expected  of  it  in  an  hour  of  desperate 
effort. 

When  a  country  is  under  foreign  domination,  there  is  a 
tendency  for  every  man  to  become  a  hero  who  resists  or  fights 
the  conquerors.  This  may  be  seen  in  more  than  one  country 
under  the  Turkish  rule.  Many  Greek  poems  of  the  last  two 
centuries  tell  of  otherwise  obscure  persons  who  have  struck  a  blow 
for  their  people  against  the  foreign  tyrants.  There  is  the  captain, 
Malamos,  who  refuses  at  the  last  moment  to  make  submission 
to  the  Turks,  because  they  are  treacherous,  and  goes  back  to  the 
mountains.4  There  is  Xepateras,  who  fights  alone  and  is  threatened 
by  a  whole  army,  but  none  the  less  refuses  to  submit  and  cuts  off 
the  head  of  the  Turk  who  asks  him  to.5  There  is  the  captain, 
Tsolkas,  who  for  three  days  and  three  nights,  without  water  or 
food  or  help,  fights  his  way  through  the  Turkish  lines.6  There 
is  Master  John,  of  Crete,  who  raises  a  rebellion,  but  is  captured 

1  Maldon,  49-54.  2  Ibid.  211-15  ;   cf.  Beowulf,  2630  ff. 

3  Maldon,  312-13.  4  Legrand,  p.  80. 

5   Idem,  p.  84.  6  Idem,  p.  88. 

"3 


HEROIC  POETRY 

by  the  Turks  and  thrown  to  the  fishes.1  There  is  the  mother  of 
the  sons  of  Lazos  who  denounces  her  sons  for  leaving  their  strong- 
hold in  Olympus  and  says  she  will  curse  them  if  they  join  the 
Turks.2  There  is  the  patriarch  Gregory  who  is  hanged  by 
Turkish  janissaries  in  front  of  his  church.3  The  episodes  are  small, 
and  the  characters  not  too  prominent,  but  a  heroic  air  is  given  to 
them  by  their  participation  in  a  great  cause  and  their  reckless 
defiance  of  the  Turks. 

The  Jugoslav  poems  on  the  resistance  to  the  Turks  present  a 
more  varied  scheme  than  the  Greek  both  in  temper  and  in  episode. 
There  are  times  when  this  resistance  takes  on  a  truly  heroic 
character  and  every  Serb  becomes  a  hero.  Such  is  the  spirit  of 
the  poems  on  Kosovo,  and  it  is  concentrated  in  the  words  which 
King  Lazar  sends  round  when  he  summons  his  people  to  battle  : 

"  He  who  is  a  Serb,  with  Serbian  forebears, 
And  of  Serbian  blood  and  Serbian  nurture, 
And  comes  not  to  battle  at  Kosovo, 
He  shall  ne'er  be  blessed  with  descendants, 
With  descendants,  either  male  or  female, 
And  beneath  his  hand  shall  nothing  flourish, 
Neither  yellow  wine  nor  waving  cornfield  : 
Let  him  rot  together  with  his  children  !  "  4 

The  call  is  answered  on  a  wide  scale  and  the  Serbian  people  goes 
to  Kosovo,  to  be  defeated  and  lose  its  independence.  The  heroes 
go  in  the  knowledge  of  what  awaits  them,  but  are  not  afraid  of  it. 
Jugovicu  Vojine  represents  a  general  view  when  he  says  : 

"  I  must  go  to  battle  at  Kosovo, 

Shed  my  life-blood  for  the  cross  of  glory, 

Perish  for  my  faith  with  all  my  brothers/'  5 

This  is  the  authentic  spirit  of  Jugoslav  heroism,  but  it  is  not  its 
only  form.  The  poems  on  the  revolt  against  the  Turks  in  1804-13 
are  on  the  surface  less  noble  in  that  they  speak  less  of  sacrifice 
and  are  less  conscious  of  defeat  and  death.  But  they  are  none 
the  less  heroic.  The  patriots  fight  gaily  and  gallantly  for  their 
country,  and  the  poems  reflect  their  confidence  and  pride.  In  this 
struggle,  as  at  Kosovo,  no  single  figure  has  a  dominating  position, 
but  heroism  is  shared  by  different  characters  who  harass  Turkish 
governors  or  tax-collectors  or  janissaries  ;  the  great  events  like  the 
battle  of  Deligrad  or  the  taking  of  Belgrade  are  the  work  of  many 
men  working  together  for  a  common  end.  This  revolt  too  fails, 

1   Legrand,  p.  98  ff.  2  Idem,  p.  116.  3  Idem,  p.  124. 

4  Karadzi^,  ii,  p.  271.    Trs.  W.  A.  Morison.  5  Idem,  p.  264. 

114 


THE  HERO 

but  this  adds  to  the  nobility  of  the  great  effort  which  has  been 
made  for  liberty.  The  poet  records  the  end  : 

Then  the  Turks  the  land  once  more  did  conquer, 
Evil  deeds  they  did  throughout  the  country ; 
They  enslaved  the  slim  Sumadian  women 
And  they  slew  the  young  men  of  Sumadija. 
Had  but  one  been  there  to  stand  and  witness, 
And  to  listen  to  the  fearsome  clamour, 
How  the  wolves  were  howling  in  the  mountains, 
In  the  villages  the  Turks  were  singing  !  l 

The  Jugoslav  sense  of  heroism  both  glorifies  any  man  who  fights 
for  his  country  and  gives  him  a  tragic  dignity  because  in  the  end 
he  fails. 

Since  the  Jugoslavs  have  created  this  poetry  of  national 
heroism,  it  is  paradoxical  that  their  chief  hero  should  be  Marko 
Kraljevic,  who  is  not  of  this  breed,  and  whose  patriotism  has  an 
ambiguous  quality.  At  least,  he  is  in  the  Sultan's  ^ervice.  For 
this  there  may  be  a  historical  justification,  since  in  fact  many 
Jugoslav  leaders  found  a  living  by  giving  their  somewhat  dubious 
loyalty  to  the  Commander  of  the  Faithful.  The  poets  accept  the 
fact  and  get  over  it  as  best  they  can  by  showing  in  what  a  jaunty, 
independent  spirit  Marko  treats  his  master.  He  disobeys  his 
orders  about  not  drinking  wine  in  Ramadan,  cuts  up  janissaries, 
persuades  the  Serbs  not  to  pay  taxes,  and  bullies  the  Sultan 
himself.  When  Marko  kills  the  Turk  who  has  his  father's  sword, 
he  stalks  fiercely  into  the  presence  of  the  Sultan,  who  has  sum- 
moned him,  and  says  without  fear  : 

"  Yes,  if  God  himself  had  giv'n  the  sabre 
To  the  Sultan,  I  had  slain  the  Sultan."  2 

Marko  appealed  to  a  people  under  the  Turkish  yoke.  The  Serbs 
had  to  find  a  way  of  life  which  did  not  detract  too  much  from 
their  own  honour,  and  created  in  him  a  man  who  accepted  the 
real  situation  and  was  yet  able  to  maintain  his  style  and  freedom. 
His  life  is  not  that  of  the  single-minded,  uncompromising  hero, 
but  in  the  mixed  world  of  Turkish  Serbia  he  shows  that  love  of 
country  still  means  something  to  the  servant  of  an  alien  despot. 

The  hero  who  champions  a  people's  rights  has  taken  a  new 
form  in  modern  times  when  the  world  "  people  "  is  used  less  of  a 
race  or  a  nation  than  of  the  nameless  masses  who  are  helpless  to 
assert  their  rights  without  a  leader.  When  such  a  leader  appears, 
he  may  in  favourable  circumstances  take  on  the  attributes  of  a 

1  Karadzic^,  iv,  p.  269.    Trs.  W.  A.  Morison.  2  Idem,  ii,  p.  316. 

"5 


HEROIC  POETRY 

hero.  In  northern  Russia  the  Revolution  of  1917  has  inspired 
poems  in  which  Lenin  is  a  hero  in  this  sense.  In  Marfa  Kryukova's 
Tale  of  Lenin  the  hard  sardonic  realist  who  created  the  Soviet 
system  has  taken  on  many  attributes  of  the  traditional  bogatyr. 
The  tale  begins  with  the  arrest  and  execution  of  Lenin's  brother 
for  an  attempt  on  the  life  of  the  Tsar  Alexander  III,  and  Lenin's 
mother  calls  on  her  children  to  fight  for  their  brother  and  "  for 
the  truth,  the  people's  truth  ".  Lenin  promises  to  do  so  and 
explains  that  he  feels  in  himself  the  confidence  to  succeed  : 

"  For  I  feel  in  me  a  great  power  : 

Were  that  ring  in  an  oaken  pillar, 

I'd  wrench  it  out,  myself  with  my  comrades, 

With  that  faithful  bodyguard  of  mine  — 

I'd  then  turn  about  the  whole  damp  mother  earth  ! 

Well  am  I  trained  in  wise  learning, 

For  I  have  read  one  magic  little  book, 

Now  I  know  where  to  find  the  ring, 

Now  I  know  how  to  turn  about  the  whole  earth, 

The  whole  earth,  our  whole  dear  Russia."  ! 

Kryukova  writes  in  the  traditional  style  and  transforms  her 
modern  themes  into  the  accepted  language  of  Russian  poetry.  So 
here  she  uses  an  ancient  theme  from  folk-lore,  the  magic  ring 
which  gives  wonderful  powers,  rather  as  the  primitive  giant 
Svyatogor  boasts  : 

"  If  I  should  take  to  walking  on  the  earth, 

I  would  fasten  a  ring  to  heaven, 

I  would  bind  an  iron  chain  to  the  ring, 

I  would  drag  the  sky  down  to  mother  earth, 

1  would  turn  the  earth  on  its  end, 

And  I  would  confound  earth  with  heaven  !  "  2 

Lenin's  ring  is  more  up-to-date.  For  he  has  learned  about  it 
from  a  book,  which  is  no  other  than  Marx's  Das  Kapital.  The 
modern  hero  uses  his  own  kind  of  magic.  The  ring  is  the  symbol 
of  the  strength  which  Lenin  offers.  So  later  in  the  poem,  when 
he  returns  to  Russia  for  the  Revolution,  the  ring  again  is 
mentioned,  and  this  time  the  people  share  his  use  of  it : 

The  whole  people  gathered  and  thronged, 

They  all  thronged  and  gathered, 

Up  to  that  marvellous  pillar. 

They  gathered  in  a  mighty  force, 

They  laid  hold  of  the  little  ring,  the  magic  one, 

Hard  it  was  to  wrench  the  little  ring, 

With  stout  force  they  wrenched  it, 

1  Kaun,  p.  186.  2  Chadwick,  R.H.P.  p.  51. 

116 


THE  HERO 

Turned  about  the  land  of  our  glorious  mother  Russia, 

To  another  side,  the  just  side, 

And  took  away  the  keys  of  little  Russia 

From  those  landlords,  from  factory  owners.1 

So  far  Lenin,  the  hero,  relies  largely  on  magic  and  is  entitled  to 
do  so  because  he  has  the  knowledge  and  craftiness  worthy  of  a  hero. 
Lenin  is  also  a  fighter.     He  has  his  own  idea  of  the  struggle 
which  awaits  him  : 

"  It  will  not  be  the  honour  of  a  man  of  prowess, 

Nor  a  knight's  glorious  fame  ; 

To  kill  a  Tsar  is  a  small  gain, 

You  kill  one  Tsar,  and  another  Tsar  rises. 

We  must  fight,  we  must  fight  in  another  way  — 

Against  all  princes,  against  all  nobles, 

Against  the  whole  order  up  to  now  !  "  2 

So  Lenin  becomes  the  champion  of  the  common  people  in  a  great 
fight.  Like  other  heroes  he  gathers  his  company  or  druzhina, 
which  consists  of  "  factory  workers  "  and  "  learned  men  "  and 
is  a  "  great  people's  force  ".  Even  when  the  people  entrusts  him 
with  the  "  golden  keys  of  the  whole  land  ",  his  efforts  are  not  over. 
After  the  Revolution  comes  the  Civil  War,  and  the  attempt  on 
Lenin's  life  by  "  a  fierce  snake  ".  While  Lenin  is  ill,  his  loyal 
comrade,  Stalin,  "  rises  in  the  stirrups  "  and  addresses  the  soldiers  : 

"  Hey  you  fellow-soldiers  of  the  Red  Army, 

Hey  you  famous  factory  workers, 

Hey  you  peasants,  tillers  of  black  soil, 

A  time  has  come,  a  most  hard  time, 

A  time  has  come,  a  most  warlike  time, 

We  must  gather  our  last  strength, 

With  our  valorous  valour  we  must  crush  our  enemies, 

Crush  our  enemies,  scatter  all  doers  of  evil."  3 

Stalin's  speech  has  the  desired  result.  The  Red  soldiers  hurl  the 
invading  generals  into  various  seas,  swamps,  and  rivers.  The 
victory  is  won,  and  now  Lenin  dies.  Physical  nature  weeps  for 
him,  and  the  earth  is  soaked  in  the  tears  of  his  mourners.  The 
whole  framework  and  style  of  the  tale  are  traditional,  but  it  suits 
the  stirring  events  of  modern  history.  Lenin  appears  as  the 
champion  of  a  people  and  acts  as  a  champion  should.  His  reward 
is  the  glory  which  he  wins  after  death. 

The  career  of  a  hero  needs,  at  least  for  artistic  completeness,^ 
some  kind  of  realisation.     The  efforts  and  the  preparations  must 

1   Kaun,  p.  188.  2  Idem,  p.  186.  3  Idem,  p.  189. 

117 


HEROIC  POETRY 

lead  to  an  impressive  end.  Such  an  end  is  often  a  triumphant 
success  which  shows  the  hero's  worth  and  wins  him  his  due  of 
glory.  So  the  Kara-Kirghiz  Manas  ends  with  the  capture  of 
Peking,  and  the  Kalmuck  poems  with  feasts  to  celebrate  victories  ; 
so  the  Odyssey  ends  with  Odysseus  being  reunited  to  his  wife,  the 
Cid  with  the  reinstatement  of  the  hero  in  royal  favour  and  the 
marriage  of  his  daughters  to  kings.  Other  poets  seem  to  feel  that 
they  must  provide  something  more  complete  and  final  and  that 
the  only  right  close  is  the  end  of  the  hero's  life.  So  the  Armenian 
David  is  killed  almost  casually  when  drinking  at  a  stream ;  so 
Beowulf  exerts  his  strength  for  the  last  time  in  killing  a  dragon  ~and 
is  himself  killed.  In  such  cases  the  death  comes  appropriately 
without  exciting  any  powerful  emotions.  In  such  a  hero's  life 
there  are  no  paradoxes  ;  he  encounters  difficulties  and  overcomes 
them  until  his  span  is  finished.  Such  a  view  concentrates  on  the 
hero's  powers  and  successes  and  raises  no  difficult  questions  about 
his  calling  or  his  position  in  the  scheme  of  human  action.  [ 

Not  all  heroes,  however,  are  conceived  in  this  way.  Often 
enough  their  careers  seem  to  lead  inevitably  to  disaster  and  to  find 
their  culmination  in  it.  When  this  happens,  the  story  gains 
greatly  in  depth  and  strength,  since  the  hero  who  comes  to  such 
an  end  seems  in  his  last  hours  to  be  most  truly  himself  and  to 
make  his  greatest  efforts.  His  life,  instead  of  ending  quietly,  ends 
in  a  blaze  of  glory  which  illumines  his  whole  achievement  and 
character.  If  he  dies  after  a  heroic  struggle,  he  shows  that,  when 
it  comes  to  the  final  test,  he  is  ready  to  sacrifice  himself  for  his 
ideal  of  manhood.  Such  deaths  are  naturally  more  moving  and 
more  exalting  than  any  quiet  end,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  the 
poets  make  much  of  them.  Moreover  they  raise  questions  about 
motives  and  standards  of  behaviour  which  increase  the  dramatic 
reality  of  the  story,  and  give  the  poet  considerable  opportunities 
to  present  the  kind  of  spiritual  conflict  which  illustrates  important 
issues  in  the  heroic  outlook.  On  such  occasions  it  is  difficult  to 
escape  from  a  sense  of  doom  which  will  be  fulfilled,  whatever 
human  beings  do  to  prevent  it ;  the  hero,  no  less  than  other  men, 
must  meet  his  destined  end.  So  the  story  passes  from  the  record 
of  bold  achievements  to  something  graver  and  grander  and 
suggests  dark  considerations  about  the  place  of  man  in  the  world 
and  the  hopeless  fight  which  he  puts  up  against  his  doom.J  Such 
an  outlook  seems  on  the  whole  to  exist  mainly  in  aristocratic 
societies,  perhaps  because  they  are  not  quite  easy  about  the 
heroic  ideal  and  feel  that,  great  though  its  rewards  are,  it  demands 
a  price  which  is  no  less  great,  and  that  in  the  last  resort  the  hero 

118 


THE  HERO 

fulfils  his  destiny  by  meeting  his  doom  when  circumstances  arise 
which  he  challenges  but  is  unable  to  defeat. 

This  sense  of  doom  is  effectively  displayed  in  the  theme  of  the 
disastrous  choice,  in  which  the  hero  is  confronted  by  having  to 
choose  between  two  courses,  each  of  which  is  in  some  way  evil. 
He  makes  his  decision,  and  whatever  it  is,  it  means  disaster.  The 
Elder  Edda  gives  good  examples  of  this.  When  Gunnar  believes 
that  his  wife,  Brynhild,  has  slept  with  Sigurth,  he  is  torn  between 
two  fearful  alternatives  :  either  he  can  do  nothing,  and  in  that 
case  he  dishonours  himself  as  a  man  and  a  husband,  or  he  can 
kill  Sigurth,  and  in  that  case  he  breaks  his  faith  to  a  devoted 
friend.  In  the  Short  Lay  of  Sigurth  the  issue  is  perfectly  clear. 
Brynhild  demands  the  death  of  Sigurth  and  says  that  otherwise 
she  will  leave  Gunnar.  Gunnar  consults  Hogni  and  tells  him 
how  much  he  loves  Brynhild  : 

"  More  than  all      to  me  is  Brynhild, 
Buthli's  child,      the  best  of  women  ; 
My  very  life      would  I  sooner  lose 
Than  yield  the  love      of  yonder  maid."  I 

Though  Hogni  advises  him  to  do  nothing,  Gunnar  decides  that 
Sigurth  must  be  killed  and  avoids  the  point  of  honour  by  getting 
his  brother,  Gotthorm,  to  do  it.  The  means  are  certainly  question- 
able, but  Gunnar  is  in  an  impossible  position.  He  believes,  quite 
wrongly  since  Sigurth  is  innocent,  that  he  must  avenge  his  wife's 
honour  if  he  is  to  keep  her  love,  and  in  that  case  Sigurth  must  die. 
In  this  moment  Gunnar  is  the  victim  of  doom,  and  Brynhild, 
who  is  near  to  being  a  murderess,  wins  sympathy  by  her  conception 
of  her  own  honour  and  by  her  decision  to  kill  herself  once  she 
has  had  her  vengeance. 

Guthrun  is  faced  with  a  similar  choice  in  Atlamdl  and  Atla- 
kvitha.  Despite  many  differences  the  two  poems  tell  what  is  in 
outline  the  same  story.  Guthrun  is  torn  between  two  loyalties, 
one  to  her  husband,  Atli,  and  the  other  to  her  brothers,  whom 
Atli  kills.  Since  the  Norse  heroic  world  would  recognise  both 
loyalties,  the  poets  know  that  Guthrun  has  to  make  a  terrible 
choice.  They  tell  that  she  decides  to  be  loyal  to  her  brothers 
and  kill  her  husband,  but  they  explain  her  decision  differently. 
In  Atlakvitha  she  kills  Atli  because  he  has  violated  his  oath  to  his 
guests  and  so  set  himself  beyond  any  obligation  which  she  may 
feel  to  him.  The  point  is  not  made  very  clearly,  but  Gunnar 
foretells  it  before  his  death,2  and  it  can  hardly  be  doubted.  In 
Atlamdl  Guthrun  is  moved  by  the  consideration  that  in  the  last 
1  Sigurtharkvitha  en  Skamma,  15.  2  Atlakvitha,  32. 

119  I 


HEROIC  POETRY 

resort  blood  is  thicker  than  any  adopted  tie  and  that  she  must 
avenge  her  dead  brothers.  The  poet  dwells  on  Guthrun's  feelings 
and  especially  on  her  love  for  her  brother  Hogni.  When  she 
hears  of  his  death,  she  tells  Atli  that  she  cannot  forgive  him  : 

"  Our  childhood  we  had      in  a  single  house, 

We  played  many  a  game,      in  the  grove  we  grew  ; 

Then  Grimhild  gave  us      gold  and  necklaces  ; 

Thou  shalt  ne'er  make  amends      for  my  brother's  murder, 

Nor  ever  shalt  win  me      to  think  it  was  well."  : 

Guthrun  makes  her  choice,  which  may  well  be  right  according  to 
her  own  code  but  is  none  the  less  ghastly. 

Gunnar  and  Guthrun  are  moved  largely  by  instinctive,  un- 
reasonable passion,  he  by  love  for  Brynhild,  she  by  feelings  of 
kinship.  But  there  is  another  kind  of  choice  which  is  made  with 
full  knowledge  and  is  none  the  less  disastrous.  The  hero  is 
faced  with  alternatives  which  he  weighs  carefully,  and  chooses  the 
one  which  brings  disaster.  Many  lands  have  a  story  of  the  father 
who  fights  with  his  son.  This  is  in  any  case  a  painful  theme,  but  it 
assumes  a  special  grandeur  in  Hildebrand.  Unfortunately  the  poem 
is  incomplete,  and  we  do  not  know  what  the  end  was,  but  what 
survives  abounds  in  tragic  possibilities.  The  old  warrior,  Hilde- 
brand, has  been  an  exile  for  thirty  years  when  he  meets  in  battle 
a  young  man  who  prepares  to  fight  him  in  single  combat.  This, 
though  Hildebrand  does  not  know  it,  is  his  son  Hadubrand. 
Before  beginning  to  fight,  Hildebrand  asks  Hadubrand  who  he  is 
and  finds  out  at  once  that  it  is  his  son.  He  begins  to  tell  him  the 
truth : 

"  But  High  God  knows      in  heaven  above, 
That  thou  never  yet      with  such  near  kin  man, 
Hero  brave,      hast  held  thy  parley  !  " 

He  then  unwinds  a  gold  ring  from  his  arm  and  offers  it  to  Hadu- 
brand with  the  words  "  In  love  now  I  give  it  thee  ".  But  Hadu- 
brand refuses  it,  because  he  thinks  that  his  adversary  is  lying  and 
trying  to  trap  him.  Hildebrand  is  thus  faced  with  a  fearful  choice. 
He  must  either  refuse  battle  and  incur  the  charge  of  cowardice  or 
fight  his  own  son.  He  decides  on  the  second  course,  and  his 
words  show  what  his  motives  are  : 

"  Now  my  own  sweet  son      with  sword  must  hew  me, 

Fell  me  with  falchion,      or  fall  at  my  hands  ! 

—  Yet  'tis  easily  done,      if  thou  doughty  be, 

From  so  old  a  man      his  arms  to  take, 

To  seize  the  spoil,      if  such  strength  be  thine. 

1  Atlamdl,  68. 
120 


THE  HERO 

Most  infamous  were  he      of  East  Goth  folk 

Who  should  keep  thee  from  combat      so  keenly  desired, 

From  fight  with  foe  !      Let  the  fated  one  try 

Whether  now  his  trappings      be  taken  from  him 

Or  both  of  these  breast-plates      he  boasts  as  his  own."  l 

Hildebrand  decides  to  fight  because  he  is  a  warrior  who  believes 
that  he  cannot  in  honour  refuse  a  challenge.  We  do  not  know  how 
the  poem  told  the  end  of  the  story.  In  later  versions,  like  the 
fifteenth- century  Der  voter  mit  dem  sun  of  Kasper  von  der  Ron,2 
and  a  broadsheet  of  1515, 3  the  end  comes  happily  with  the  mutual 
recognition  of  father  and  son.  But  it  looks  as  if  the  Old  German 
poem  ended  with  Hadubrand's  death,  since  it  is  couched  in  a  grim 
and  tragic  tone,  and  such  was  the  version  known  to  Saxo  Gram- 
maticus.4  But  in  either  case,  whatever  the  sequel  is,  the  choice 
which  Hildebrand  has  to  face  is  indeed  grave.  Human  affections 
pull  him  in  one  direction,  but  honour  forces  him  in  another. 

A  special  form  of  the  disastrous  choice  can  be  seen  in  the 
Jugoslav  poem,  The  Fall  of  the  Serbian  Kingdom.  The  prophet 
Elias  comes  to  Tsar  Lazar  with  a  message  from  the  Mother  of 
God  which  offers  him  a  choice  : 

"  Tsar  Lazar,  thou  prince  of  noble  lineage, 
What  wilt  thou  now  choose  to  be  thy  kingdom  ? 
Say,  dost  thou  desire  a  heavenly  kingdom, 
Or  dost  thou  prefer  an  earthly  kingdom  ?  "  s 

If  Lazar  takes  the  first  alternative,  he  will  be  destroyed  with  his 
army ;  if  the  second,  he  will  destroy  the  enemy.  The  choice  is 
difficult,  especially  for  a  hero,  since  the  introduction  of  a  celestial 
reward  puts  his  calculations  out.  The  ordinary  hero  would 
undoubtedly  accept  the  second  alternative,  but,  since  Lazar  is  the 
champion  of  the  Christian  Serbs  against  the  infidel  Turks,  he 
must  in  the  end  choose  the  first.  In  his  situation  this  is  the 
heroic  thing  to  do.  It  means  his  own  death  and  the  destruction 
of  his  kingdom,  but  as  a  man  of  honour  he  must  do  the  utmost 
for  his  faith,  and  so  he  decides  : 

"  If  I  now  should  choose  an  earthly  kingdom, 

Lo,  an  earthly  kingdom  is  but  fleeting, 

But  God's  kingdom  shall  endure  for  ever."  6 

Indeed  in  Lazar's  choice  we  may  with  some  reason  detect  a  high 
heroic  pride,  even  though  it  is  placed  in  a  Christian  setting.  If  a 

1   Hildebrand,  53-62.  2  Henrici,  Das  deutsche  Heldenbuch,  p.  301  ff. 

3  Von  Liliencron,  Deutsches  Leben  im  Volkslied  um  1530,  p.  84  ff. 

4  Holder,  p.  244.  5  Karadzic,  ii,  p.  268.  6  Idem,  p.  269. 

121 


HEROIC  POETRY 

hero  is  offered  a  choice  between  victory  and  a  magnificent  disaster, 
it  is  almost  necessary  for  him  to  choose  the  disaster,  since  it 
shows  the  degree  of  sacrifice  which  he  is  prepared  to  make. 
Lazar's  desire  for  a  heavenly  kingdom  is  essentially  not  very 
different  from  the  hope  of  Paradise  which  sustains  Roland  in  his 
last  fight  at  Roncesvalles.  The  heroic  spirit  is  easily  attached  to 
great  ideals  of  this  kind  but  remains  none  the  less  heroic.  The 
poet,  of  course,  approves  Lazar's  decision  and  gives  a  benediction 
to  it : 

All  was  done  with  honour,  all  was  holy, 
God's  will  was  fulfilled  upon  Kosovo.1 

The  identification  of  honour  with  God's  will  does  not  mean  that 
Lazar's  sense  of  honour  is  not  of  the  noblest  and  highest  kind. 
Though  his  position  is  unusual  and  outside  the  usual  heroic  way 
of  life,  it  enables  him  to  behave  in  a  way  worthy  of  his  position 
and  to  fulfil  his  destiny  with  glory. 

Different  from  the  disastrous  choice  is  the  disastrous  mistake. 
There  are  many  forms  of  this,  and  in  all  a  decision  is  made  wrongly 
through  some  miscalculation  or  defect  of  character.  The  result  is 
always  some  catastrophe  which  might  otherwise  have  been  averted. 
The  usual  cause  of  such  decisions  is  the  hero's  pride  which  forbids 
him  to  take  any  course  which  he  thinks  dishonourable  or  below 
his  dignity.  His  high  spirit  drives  him  on,  and  so,  when  disaster 
follows,  it  seems  inevitable  and  almost  appropriate.  Such  is  the 
case  in  Maldon.  The  Vikings  have  landed  their  force  on  an  island 
in  the  river.  Here  they  can  do  little  harm,  since  their  only  way 
out  is  across  a  causeway  held  by  the  English  troops.  When  they 
try  to  force  a  passage  across  it,  they  are  easily  stopped.  The  right 
tactics  would  have  been  to  keep  the  Vikings  on  the  island  until 
they  were  forced  to  take  to  their  ships  or  were  all  killed  in  efforts 
to  reach  the  mainland.  But  the  heroic  world  does  not  act  in  this 
way.  The  Vikings  ask  to  be  allowed  to  cross  over  and  fight  on  the 
mainland,  and  Byrhtnoth  allows  them  to  do  so : 

"  Now  is  space  yielded.      Come  with  speed  hither, 

Warriors  to  battle.      God  alone  wots 

Who  will  hold  fast      in  the  field  of  battle."  2 

The  result  is  that  the  English  lose  the  advantage  of  their  position, 
and  are  defeated  and  destroyed  in  the  fight  that  follows  on  the 
open  land.  Byrhtnoth's  motives  are  not  unlike  Hildebrand's. 
He  feels  that  as  a  soldier  he  cannot  refuse  his  opponent  a  chance  to 
fight,  and  the  existing  position  seems  likely  to  end  in  a  stalemate. 

Karadzic,  ii,  p.  270.  z  Maldon,  93-5. 

122 


THE  HERO 

But,  unlike  Hildebrand,  he  takes  a  wrong  decision  because  he 
allows  his  sense  of  honour  to  override  his  real  duty.  But  he  would 
not  be  judged  in  this  way.  His  end  is  glorious  because  he  obeys 
the  dictates  of  heroic  honour  and  prefers  death  to  an  inglorious 
success. 

A  somewhat  similar  mistake  is  made  by  Roland  in  the  beginning 
of  the  fight  at  Roncesvalles.  As  a  loyal  liegeman  of  Charlemagne 
he  undertakes  to  command  the  rear-guard  of  the  army,  though  he 
knows  that  treachery  is  afoot  and  that  his  task  is  exceedingly 
hazardous.  So  far  he  does  what  he  must  do,  and  no  criticism  is 
permissible.  But  in  so  far  as  his  task  is  to  guard  the  rear,  he 
should  take  every  thought  to  do  it  properly.  When  he  takes  up 
his  position,  Roland  sees  the  advancing  hosts  of  Saracens  and 
knows  that  all  his  fears  are  confirmed.  His  comrade  Oliver 
grasps  the  realities  of  the  situation  and  three  times  calls  on  Roland 
to  sound  his  horn ;  for  then  Charlemagne  will  hear  and  come  to 
their  help.  But  Roland  refuses,  and  his  words  show  his  character 
and  motives  : 

"  Never,  by  God,"  then  answers  him  Rollanz, 

"  Shall  it  be  said  by  any  living  man, 

That  for  pagans  I  took  my  horn  in  hand  ! 

Never  by  me  shall  he  reproach  my  clan. 

When  I  am  come  into  the  battle  grand, 

And  blows  lay  on,  by  hundred,  by  thousand, 

Of  Durendai  bloodied  you'll  see  the  brand. 

Franks  are  good  men  ;  like  vassals  brave  they'll  stand  ; 

Nay,  Spanish  men  from  death  have  no  warrant."  1 

Roland  refuses  because  of  his  heroic  pride.  He  is  confident  that 
his  strength  of  arm  will  do  all  that  is  needed,  and  this  confidence 
is  an  essential  part  of  his  character.  Later,  when  he  is  wounded 
to  the  point  of  death,  he  admits  his  mistake  and  sounds  his  horn, 
but  it  is  then  too  late  to  save  himself  or  his  companions.  But 
though  Roland  dies  because  of  this  mistake,  no  one  would  wish 
it  otherwise.  The  mistake  is  characteristic  of  him,  and  in  making 
it  he  is  essentially  himself,  while  his  death  is  all  the  more  glorious 
because  he  has  fought  against  tremendous  odds. 

Achilles  is  not  a  tragic  hero  in  the  same  sense  as  Roland,  but 
over  him  too  hangs  a  like  sense  of  doom.  He  is  fated  to  die  young 
and  glorious  and  is  fully  conscious  of  his  fate.  He  himself  speaks 
of  it  more  than  once  and  it  is  foretold  to  him  by  his  own  horse 
and  by  the  dying  Hector.2  What  makes  it  more  poignant  is  that 
in  the  short  time  before  him  he  makes  a  great  error  in  abstaining 

1  Roland,  1073-81.  2  //.  xix,  409  ff.  ;   xxii,  358  fT. 

123 


HEROIC  POETRY 

from  battle  and  in  consequence  loses  his  friend  Patroclus. 
He  makes  this  decision  because  he  feels,  rightly  enough,  that 
Agamemnon  has  insulted  him  by  demanding  from  him  a  girl 
who  is  his  legitimate  booty.  As  a  hero  who  lives  for  honour  he 
cannot  endure  the  affront,  and  his  answer  is  to  humble  Agamemnon 
by  refusing  to  help  him  in  battle.  But,  though  this  abstention 
undeniably  harms  Agamemnon  and  humiliates  the  Achaeans  to 
the  point  of  begging  Achilles  to  return  to  the  fight,  in  the  end  it 
harms  Achilles  himself  more.  When,  instead  of  fighting  himself, 
he  allows  Patroclus  to  take  the  field,  he  sends  him  to  his  death, 
and  his  remorse  and  anger  at  this  so  dominate  him  that  he  rages 
with  fury  and  treats  his  enemies  with  less  than  customary  chivalry. 
The  tragedy  of  Achilles  is  less  in  his  misfortunes  than  in  his  soul. 
For  this  Homer  creates  an  incomparable  end  when  Achilles  is 
touched  by  the  entreaties  of  old  Priam  and  gives  back  Hector's 
body.  With  this  act  of  courtesy  Achilles*  wrath  is  healed,  and  he 
is  himself  again.  None  the  less,  though  the  Iliad  ends  in  a  harmony 
of  reconciliation,  the  harm  has  been  done.  The  great  hero  has 
passed  through  a  dark  chapter  and  behaved  in  a  way  unworthy  of 
himself.  With  him,  as  with  Roland,  this  is  inevitable  because  his 
heroic  nature  makes  him  extremely  sensitive  about  his  honour, 
and  the  force  which  is  so  formidable  on  the  battlefield  turns  all 
too  easily  into  fierce  wrath  against  his  friends.  But,  even  when 
he  is  most  furious,  he  is  still  the  great  hero,  who  accomplishes 
wonderful  feats  of  prowess  and  has  no  equal  in  the  acts  of  war. 

The  wrathful  temper  which  harms  Achilles  finds  a  striking 
parallel  in  the  Norse  Lay  of  Hamther.  Guthrun  sends  her  two 
sons,  Hamther  and  Sorli,  to  avenge  their  sister,  Svanhild,  on 
Jormunrek,  who  has  done  her  brutally  to  death.  They  set  out 
on  their  task,  and  are  joined  by  their  bastard  half-brother,  Erp. 
He  offers  his  help  to  them,  no  doubt  because  he  too  feels  that  he 
has  obligations  to  Svanhild  and  that  these  men  are  his  brothers. 
But  they  reject  his  offer  with  scorn,  and  Erp  cannot  but  reply 
with  anger  and  insult : 

Then  Erp  spake  forth,      his  words  were  few, 
As  haughty  he  sat      on  his  horse's  back  : 
"  To  the  timid  'tis  ill      the  way  to  tell  ". 
A  bastard  they      the  bold  one  called.1 

A  fight  follows,  and  Erp  is  killed.  The  short,  brutal  episode  shows 
on  both  sides  how  the  heroic  spirit  works.  Erp,  wishing  to  show 
his  worth,  makes  a  generous  offer,  and  when  it  is  rejected,  has  to 

1  Hamthismdl,  16. 
124 


THE  HERO 

fight  for  his  honour  ;  the  brothers,  in  their  proud  notion  of  them- 
selves, do  not  want  his  help  and  reject  it  in  excess  of  self-confidence. 
For  this  they  pay.  After  they  have  wounded  Jormunrek  to  death 
and  are  ready  to  depart,  the  dying  king  calls  his  men  to  his  rescue. 
If  Erp  had  been  there  to  help  them,  the  brothers  would  have 
killed  their  attackers,  but  as  it  is  they  are  defeated,  and  before 
they  die,  see  that  their  doom  is  the  result  of  their  fatal  mistake 
in  killing  him.  Hamther  accepts  his  fate,  and  though  he  admits 
his  mistake,  he  ,is  not  ashamed  of  it : 

"  His  head  were  off  now      if  Erp  were  living, 
The  brother  so  keen      whom  we  killed  on  the  road, 
The  warrior  noble,  —      'twas  the  Norns  that  drove  me 
The  hero  to  slay      who  in  fight  should  be  holy. 

"  We  have  greatly  fought,      o'er  the  Goths  do  we  stand 
By  our  blades  laid  low,      like  eagles  on  branches  ; 
Great  our  fame  though  we  die      to-day  or  to-morrow  ; 
None  outlives  the  night      when  the  Norns  have  spoken." 

Then  Sorli  beside      the  gable  sank, 

And  Hamther  fell      at  the  back  of  the  house.1 

The  tragic  mistake  seems  to  be  inevitable  to  the  heroic  temper  and 
provides  some  of  its  most  poignant  and  most  splendid  moments. 

The  hero  who  finds  troubles  in  himself,  may  find  other  troubles ' 
in  his  circumstances,  and  resist  them  with  the  same  energy  which 
he  bestows  on  his  human  adversaries.  In  his  desire  to  be  himself 
he  may  seek  to  war  against  the  whole  condition  of  life  or  against 
the  gods  who  impose  it.^  Though  few  heroic  poems  make  men 
engage  in  unremitting  warfare  with  the  gods,  such  struggles  take 
place  and  have  a  peculiar  quality.  The  heroes  of  the  Iliad  engage 
gods  and  goddesses  in  fight  in  the  plain  of  Troy,  and  though  for 
a  short  time  they  seem  to  get  the  better  of  the  encounter,  it  is 
clear  before  long  that  they  arc  committed  to  an  impossible  task. 
So  though  Diomedes  does  not  shrink  from  defying  Apollo  when 
the  god  protects  Aeneas,  he  gives  way  when  the  divine  voice  tells 
him  to  yield  because  there  is  no  equality  between  the  immortal 
gods  and  men  who  walk  the  earth.2  Even  Achilles,  who  defies 
the  river-god  Scamander  and  is  ready  to  fight  with  him,  is  forced 
to  run  away  from  him,  "  for  the  gods  are  stronger  than  men  ".3 
Odysseus  owes  many  of  his  troubles  to  having  angered  Poseidon, 
nearly  meets  his  death  when  Poseidon  wrecks  his  raft,  and  is  safe 
only  when  he  reaches  land.  Homer's  moderation  forbade  him 
to  allow  his  heroes  to  venture  too  much  against  the  gods  or  to 

1  Ibid.  28  and  30-31.  2  //.  v,  440  ff.  3  Ibid,  xxi,  264. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

come  too  violently  into  conflict  with  them.  Those  in  Greek 
legend  who  went  further  than  this,  like  Tantalus,  who  sought  to 
avoid  death  by  deceit,  or  Ixion,  who  violated  Hera,  the  wife  of 
Zeus,  provided  examples  of  hideous  sin  and  condign  punishment. 
It  was  dangerous  to  set  men  too  clearly  against  the  gods,  and 
Homer  avoids  it. 

The  issue  is  raised  on  a  larger  scale  and  in  a  bolder  spirit  in 
Gilgamish)  which  is  nothing  less  than  the  story  of  a  hero  who 
tries  to  surmount  his  human  limitations  and  fails.  At  the  beginning 
of  the  poem  Gilgamish  is  so  sure  of  himself  that  he  allows  nothing 
to  obstruct  his  will.  No  man  and  no  woman  is  safe  from  his 
violence,  and  his  ways  are  so  outrageous  that  in  response  to 
prayers  from  the  men  of  Erech,  where  Gilgamish  rules,  the  gods 
decide  to  create  another  hero  no  less  mighty  who  shall  overcome 
him.  So  Enkidu,  a  strange  creature  of  the  wilds,  is  made  from 
the  desert  clay.  But  Gilgamish  frustrates  the  gods'  plan  by 
vanquishing  Enkidu  in  fight  and  then  forming  a  devoted  friend- 
ship with  him.  The  two  heroes  show  their  valour  by  destroying 
the  ogre  Humbaba,  and  this  leads  to  a  second  struggle  with  the 
gods.  The  goddess  Ishtar  falls  in  love  with  Gilgamish  and  makes 
him  an  offer  of  marriage  which  he  rejects  with  scorn.  He  reminds 
her  of  those  lovers  whom  she  has  betrayed  or  maltreated  and 
heaps  abuse  on  her.  She  is  so  enraged  that  she  asks  her  father, 
Anu,  to  make  a  heavenly  bull  to  kill  both  Gilgamish  and  Enkidu. 
But  this  too  fails.  The  bull  is  a  terrible  monster,  but  the  heroes 
destroy  it.  After  this  the  gods  decide  that  Enkidu,  though  not 
Gilgamish,  must  die.  So  in  his  second  round  with  the  gods 
Gilgamish  is  still  undefeated,  but  he  has  lost  his  friend,  and  his 
troubles  now  take  a  new  turn. 

After  this  deliverance  Gilgamish  continues  his  struggles  with 
the  conditions  of  human  life,  and  the  poem  takes  a  noble  grandeur 
as  it  shows  how  he  fails.  The  death  of  Enkidu  is  a  bitter  blow  to 
him,  first  because  he  has  lost  a  devoted  comrade  whom  he  loved, 
then  because  it  reveals  the  horror  and  the  reality  of  death.  He 
sees  that  he  himself,  with  his  enormous  powers,  must  also  die. 
The  thought  of  death  haunts  him,  and  he  struggles  against  it, 
hoping  that  he  can  somehow  avoid  it : 

"  Shall  I,  after  roaming  as  a  wanderer  up  and  down  the  desert, 
Lay  my  head  in  earth's  bowels  and  sleep  through  the  years  for  ever  ? 
Let  my  eyes  see  the  sun  and  be  sated  with  brightness  ; 
For  darkness  is  far  away  if  brightness  be  widespread. 
When  will  the  dead  man  look  on  the  light  of  the  sun  ?  " * 

1   Gilgamish,  ix,  ii,  10-14. 

126 


THE  HERO 

In  this  spirit  Gilgamish  devotes  all  his  energy  to  seeking  release 
from  death  and  goes  on  a  long  and  hazardous  journey  to  the  end 
of  the  world  to  find  Uta-Napishtim,  the  Babylonian  Noah,  who 
alone  among  men  is  exempt  from  death  and  should  be  able  to 
help  him.  This  quest  is  the  culmination  of  Gilgamish's  life,  his 
final  heroic  effort  to  break  the  bonds  of  mortality.  He  pursues  it 
with  unremitting  courage,  thinks  nothing  of  the  hardships  which 
he  has  to  undergo,  and  pays  no  attention  to  Siduri,  the  goddess 
of  wine,  when  she  propounds  her  gospel  of  pleasure  and  ease.  He 
rejects  her  advice  that  he  should  be  content  with  the  ordinary 
happiness  of  men,  and  pushes  on  in  his  quest.  He  knows  that  it 
is  impossible  for  a  hero  like  himself  to  live  a  life  of  unadventurous 
pleasure. 

In  due  course  Gilgamish  finds  Uta-Napishtim  and  hears  the 
story  of  the  flood  and  why  the  gods  have  exempted  Uta-Napishtim 
from  death.  The  lesson  is  that  Uta-Napishtim  has  been  so 
rewarded  because  of  his  perfect  obedience  to  the  gods.  As 
Gilgamish  is  unlikely  to  win  immortality  for  such  a  reason,  he 
tries,  at  Uta-Napishtim's  suggestion,  other  ways  of  escaping 
death.  First  he  must  consult  the  gods  how  to  do  it,  and  Uta- 
Napishtim  tells  him  that  he  must  stay  awake  for  six  nights  and 
six  days.  But  this  is  too  much  for  Gilgamish  :  he  falls  asleep 
and  has  to  be  woken  and  told  that  he  has  failed.  It  seems  that  his 
mighty  physical  frame  is  too  insistent  in  its  demands,  and  prevents 
him  from  finding  the  self-control  and  detachment  which  are 
necessary  for  converse  with  the  gods.  So  on  his  homeward 
journey  Gilgamish  tries  an  alternative  course  and  fetches  from 
the  bottom  of  the  sea  a  plant  which  gives  eternal  youth,  but, 
when  he  has  got  it,  a  serpent  seizes  it,  and  he  loses  this  chance 
also.  He  comes  home  heavy  with  failure  and  calls  up  the  ghost 
of  Enkidu,  only  to  hear  of  the  dismal  state  of  the  dead.  The 
poem  ends  with  a  conversation  between  him  and  the  ghost : 

"  He  who  dies  in  war,  hast  thou  seen  him  ?  "    "I  have  seen  him  ! 
His  mother  and  father  lift  his  head,  his  wife  is  bowed  over  him." 
"  He  whose  body  lies  in  the  desert,  hast  thou  seen  him  ?  "    "  I  have 

seen  him  ! 

His  spirit  does  not  rest  in  the  earth  in  peace." 
"  He  whose  ghost  has  none  to  tend  him,  hast  thou  seen  him  ?  "    "I 

have  seen  him. 
He  drinks  the  lees  from  cups  and  eats  crumbs  thrown  in  the  street."  l 

So  Gilgamish  ends  on  a  note  of  failure  and  emptiness.  More 
consciously  than  any  other  heroic  poem  it  stresses  the  limitations 

1  Ibid,  xn,  i,  149-54. 
127 


HEROIC  POETRY 

of  the  heroic  state  and  its  inability  to  win  all  that  it  desires,  but 
at  the  same  time  it  gives  a  peculiar  grandeur  to  the  hero  who  makes 
such  efforts  to  realise  his  nature  in  all  its  potentialities.  More  even 
than  Homer,  the  poet  of  Gilgamish  sets  his  heroic  achievements 
against  a  background  of  darkness  and  death  which  make  them  all 
the  more  splendid  because  they  are  done  for  their  own  sake 
without  any  hope  or  prospect  of  posthumous  reward.  Indeed 
Gilgamish  would  be  much  less  impressive  if  he  succeeded  in 
finding  immortality.  His  failure  is  a  tribute  to  his  unrelenting 
conflict  against  the  rules  which  govern  human  existence. 

The  splendour  which  irradiates  a  hero  in  the  hour  of  defeat  or 
death  is  a  special  feature  of  heroic  poetry.  Though  the  heroes 
know  the  struggle  to  be  hopeless,  they  continue  to  maintain  it 
and  give  to  it  the  fullest  measure  of  their  capacities.  This  is  the 
glory  of  their  setting,  the  light  which  shines  with  more  than  usual 
brightness  on  their  last  hours.  And  what  is  true  of  individuals 
may  also  be  true  of  nations  when  they  seem  to  lose  their  life  in 
some  overwhelming  catastrophe.  The  Russian  heroic  age  came 
to  a  terrible  end  when  Kiev  was  destroyed  by  Mongol  invaders  in 
1240.  Such  a  catastrophe  could  not  fail  to  leave  traces  of  itself 
in  song,  and  the  mediaeval  Tale  of  the  Ruin  of  the  Russian  Land, 
composed  not  long  after  the  event,  is  a  lament  which  reveals  the 
extent  of  the  disaster.  The  story  survived  in  popular  memory  and 
passed  into  the  different  versions  of  a  heroic  story  on  the  fall  of 
the  Russian  heroes.  The  versions  vary  much  in  detail,  but  in  the 
main  agree  that  at  a  certain  time  Vladimir  is  attacked  by  enemies 
and  summons  all  his  knights  to  fight  them.  At  first  the  Russians 
are  successful  and  destroy  the  invading  army.  Finding  that  their 
shoulders  are  not  weary  and  their  weapons  not  blunted,  they 
boast,  and  the  boast  takes  a  fatal  form.  Some  knight,  Alyosha 
Popovich  or  another,  utters  the  deadly  words  : 

"  Though  they  set  against  us  a  supernatural  army, 

An  army  which  is  not  of  this  world, 

We  shall  utterly  conquer  such  an  army."  ' 

God  hears  the  boast,  and  two  unknown  warriors  appear  and 
challenge  the  chief  Russian  knights  : 

"  Grant  a  combat  with  us  ! 

We  are  two,  you  seven.    No  matter  !  " 

The  Russians  accept  the  challenge,  but,  as  they  cut  the  strangers  in 
two,  each  half  becomes  a  new,  living  warrior.  The  fight  lasts  all 

1  Sokolov,  p.  99  fF. ;  cf.  Trautmann,  i,  p.  176  ff. 

128 


THE  HERO 

day  and  the  enemies  grow  in  number  and  courage.  At  last  they 
are  overcome  by  panic  : 

They  fled  to  the  stony  hills, 
To  the  dark  caves. 
When  a  prince  flies  to  the  mountain, 
There  he  is  turned  to  stone  ; 
When  a  second  flies, 
There  he  is  turned  to  stone  ; 
When  a  third  flies, 
There  he  is  turned  to  stone. 
Since  that  time  there  are  no  more  heroes 
in  the  Russian  land. 

In  this  tale  the  Russian  heroic  world  perishes  because  it  defies 
God.  In  the  end  its  heroic  pride  is  too  much  for  it.  It  pays  the 
last  price  and  is  no  more. 

Just  as  the  power  of  Kiev  fell  before  the  Mongols,  so  the  old 
Serbian  kingdom  perished  at  Kosovo  in  1389,  when  Tsar  Lazar 
and  his  allies  were  overwhelmed  by  the  Turkish  army  of  Sultan 
Murad,  who  was  himself  killed.  Round  this  catas;rophic  event 
memories  gathered  and  inspired  a  cycle  of  poems  which  told  of 
events  before  and  after  the  battle,  though  with  no  great  taste  for 
the  subject  of  the  battle  itself.  Unlike  the  Russians,  the  Serbs 
have  not  turned  this  disaster  into  a  myth  or  a  fable,  and,  though 
there  is  a  supernatural  element  in  the  choice  offered  to  Tsar 
Lazar,  the  rest  of  the  poems  are  realistic  and  factual.  The  events 
which  they  describe  might  well  have  happened,  even  if  they  did 
not  actually  happen  in  this  way.  The  enemies  who  defeat  the 
Serbs  are  not  supernatural  beings  but  Turks  who  wish  to  conquer 
Serbia.  Nor  is  there  any  suggestion  that  the  Serbs  are  punished 
for  pride.  On  the  contrary  their  destruction  is  due  to  Tsar 
Lazar's  decision  to  prefer  a  supernatural  to  an  earthly  kingdom,  and 
by  religious  and  moral  standards  that  is  beyond  reproach.  The 
extent  of  the  destruction  is  enormous,  as  the  Maiden  of  Kosovo 
hears  : 

"  Dost  thou  see,  dear  soul,  those  battle-lances, 
Where  they  lie  most  thickly  piled  together  ? 
There  has  flowed  the  life-blood  of  the  heroes  ; 
To  the  stirrups  of  the  faithful  horses, 
To  the  stirrups  and  the  girths  it  mounted, 
Mounted  to  the  heroes'  silken  girdles."  * 

Nor  is  Kosovo  a  battle  in  which  only  eminent  heroes  take  part ;  it 
is  fought  by  the  whole  Serbian  people  and  is  their  last  heroic 
ordeal. 

1   Karadzic,  ii,  p.  290.    Trs.  Helen  Rootham. 
129 


HEROIC  POETRY 

The  paradox  of  the  disaster  at  Kosovo  is  that  it  is  caused  by 
treachery.  The  poems  agree  that  the  Turks  defeated  the  Serbs 
because  at  a  crucial  moment  of  the  battle  Vuk  Brancovic  led  away 
his  troops  and  turned  the  scale  against  his  own  side.  This  seems 
in  fact  not  to  have  happened,  but  legend  has  canonised  it.  The 
issue  is  stated  simply  in  The  Fall  of  the  Serbian  Empire  : 

Tsar  Lazar  and  all  his  mighty  warriors 

There  had  overwhelm'd  the  unbelievers, 

But  —  the  curse  of  God  be  on  the  traitor, 

On  Vuk  Brancovic  —  he  left  his  kinsman, 

He  deserted  him  upon  Kosovo  ; 

And  the  Turks  overwhelmed  Lazar  the  glorious, 

And  the  Tsar  fell  on  the  field  of  battle  ; 

And  with  him  did  perish  all  his  army, 

Seven  and  seventy  thousand  chosen  warriors.1 

Just  as  Ganelon  betrays  Roland  to  the  disaster  of  Roncesvalles,  so 
Vuk  betrays  Lazar  to  the  disaster  at  Kosovo.  But  whereas 
Roncesvalles  is  soon  avenged  by  Charlemagne,  there  is  no  one  left 
to  avenge  Kosovo ;  for  the  whole  nation  has  perished  at  it.  The 
two  cases  show  the  doom  which  the  heroic  world  carries  in  its  very 
being.  The  man  who  lives  for  his  own  honour  feels  all  too  easily 
any  slights  laid  upon  it  and  is  jealous  to  the  point  of  treachery  of 
those  who  surpass  him.  Ganelon  and  Vuk  are  driven  by  injured 
pride  to  betray  their  comrades.  In  their  own  judgment  there  is 
nothing  wrong  in  this,  since  pride  provides  their  whole  scale  and 
scheme  of  values.  They  act  much  as  Achilles  does  when  he 
abstains  from  battle,  but  they  carry  out  their  purposes  more 
relentlessly  and  do  not  repent  in  time.  The  heroic  system  breaks 
down  through  its  own  nature.  Yet  even  so  the  disaster  of  Kosovo 
remains  glorious  in  Serb  memory  because  of  the  heroism  which 
the  nation  as  a  whole  showed  at  it. 

A  catastrophe  of  this  kind,  whether  it  happens  to  an  individual 
or  to  a  nation,  provides  a  satisfying  end  to  a  heroic  legend.  It  is 
somehow  right  that  great  warriors  should  die,  as  they  have  lived, 
in  battle,  and  refuse  to  surrender  to  powers  stronger  than  them- 
selves. It  means  that  they  are  ready  to  sacrifice  their  lives  for  an 
ideal  of  a  heroic  manhood  which  will  never  yield  but  will  always 
do  its  utmost  in  prowess  and  endurance.  There  must  always  come 
a  point  when  heroes  encounter  an  enemy  whom  they  cannot 
subdue  and  then,  if  they  shirk  the  issue,  they  are  unworthy  of 
themselves.  At  last  comes  the  obstacle  which  cannot  be  sur- 
mounted, the  fight  which  is  too  much  even  for  the  greatest  and 

1  Karadzic,  ii,  p.  271.    Trs.  Helen  Rootham. 

130 


THE  HERO 

strongest  hero.  He  may  fall  to  foul  play  like  Sigurth  or  to  treachery 
and  overwhelming  force  like  Roland  or  to  something  almost 
accidental  and  trivial  like  Achilles  to  the  arrow  of  Paris.  When 
he  so  falls,  his  life  is  completed  and  rounded  off,  as  it  can  hardly 
be  if  he  lives  to  safe  old  age.  The  Greeks  thought  Achilles  a 
greater  hero  than  Odysseus,  because  he  dies  young  in  battle,  while 
Odysseus,  after  all  his  adventures,  will  die  among  a  contented 
people  from  a  death  "  ever  so  gentle  "  which  comes  from  the  sea.1 
To  his  heroic  career  the  final  fitting  touch  is  lacking.  Of  this 
fatality  the  greatest  heroes  are  often  conscious.  They  know  that 
their  lives  may  be  short,  but  this  is  only  a  greater  incentive  to 
fill  them  with  action  and  glory.  When  Gripir  tells  Sigurth  his 
future,  Sigurth  is  not  downcast  but  says  simply  : 

"  Now  fare  thee  well  !    Our  fates  we  shun  not  ",2 

and  accepts  almost  gladly  what  lies  before  him.  Achilles  too 
knows  that  his  life  is  short  and  that  he  will  be  killed  in  battle,  and, 
though  for  a  passing  moment  this  makes  him  hate  the  thought  of 
battle  and  wish  to  go  home,  it  soon  makes  him  an  even  greater 
hero  than  before  and  stirs  him  to  speak  the  terrible  words  with 
which  he  refuses  mercy  to  Lycaon  : 

"  See  what  a  man  I  am  also,  both  strong  and  comely  to  look  on, 
Great  was  the  father  who  bred  me,  a  goddess  the  mother  who  bore  me  ; 
Yet  over  me  stand  death  and  overmastering  fortune. 
To  me  a  dawn  shall  come,  or  a  noontide  hour,  or  an  evening, 
When  some  man  shall  deprive  me  of  life  in  the  heat  of  the  battle, 
Casting  at  me  with  a  spear  or  an  arrow  shot  from  a  bow-string."  3 

In  his  consciousness  that  his  life  is  short  Achilles  becomes  more 
active  and  more  heroic.  In  this  he  is  typical  of  all  doomed  heroes 
whose  short  careers  reflect  in  their  crowded  eventfulness  the 
bursting  ardours  of  the  heroic  soul. 

1   Od.  xi,  134  ff.  z  Gnpisspd,  52,  i.  3   //.  xxi,  108-13. 


IV 
THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

IN  assuming  that  what  they  tell  is  in  the  main  true,  heroic  poets 
treat  it  with  realism  and  objectivity.  However  strange  some  of 
their  episodes  may  be,  the  narrative  is  made,  so  far  as  possible,  to 
conform  to  life  as  they  see  it.  They  employ  many  themes  which 
give  a  greater  solidity  and  verisimilitude  to  their  tales.  Since 
heroes  move  in  what  is  assumed  to  be  a  real  world,  their  back- 
ground and  their  circumstances  must  be  depicted,  and,  when  their 
quests  carry  them  into  unusual  places,  these  must  be  made  real 
to  audiences  who  know  nothing  of  them  and  wish  to  hear  what 
they  are  like.  At  the  same  time  heroic  poetry  does  not  indulge  in 
description  for  its  own  sake.  Since  its  main  concern  is  with  heroes 
and  their  doings,  it  would  fail  in  its  duty  if  it  were  to  spend  too 
much  time  on  mere  decoration.  It  does  not  provide  such  scenes 
of  imaginary  beauty  as  we  find  in  romance  or  "  literary  "  epic. 
The  heroic  poet  keeps  his  eye  on  his  characters  and  their  doings 
and  does  not  waste  energy  on  irrelevant  detail,  but  detail  which 
is  to  the  point  he  likes  and  provides  in  abundance.  It  is  indeed 
necessary  to  his  purpose.  It  may  at  one  time  reflect  his  hero's 
character,  at  another  show  in  what  circumstances  he  carries  out 
his  designs.  In  general  it  brings  the  story  closer  to  life  and  makes 
it  more  substantial.  Of  course  the  descriptions  may  add  to  the 
charm  of  the  poetry,  and  the  poet  is  often  conscious  of  this 'and 
takes  advantage  of  it.  But  it  is  not  his  primary  purpose.  Since  a 
hero  lives  and  moves,  it  is  necessary  to  tell  how  he  lives  and  in 
what  places  he  moves,  and  by  this  means  heroic  poetry  secures 
much  of  its  fullness  and  independence. 

Description  of  natural  scenery  is  rare  in  heroic  poetry,  nor  is  it 
difficult  to  see  why.  This  is  an  art  which  flourishes  in  societies 
which  do  not  live  in  towns  and  know  the  country  so  well  that  they 
take  it  for  granted  and  feel  no  call  to  make  much  of  it.  They  lack 
not  only  the  modern  city-dweller's  desire  for  it  as  a  place  of 
escape  but  the  whole  romantic  conception  of  it  as  a  home  of 
secrets  and  mysteries.  For  them  indeed  towns  hardly  exist,  and, 
when  they  exist,  are  certainly  more  wonderful  than  any  wonders 
of  nature,  since  they  are  the  exception  and  the  country  is  the  rule. 
This  does  not  mean  that  nature  is  nothing  to  heroic  poets  or 

132 


THE   REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

that  they  are  not  interested  in  the  background  against  which  their 
characters  play  their  parts.  They  are  interested  in  nature  at  least 
as  a  background,  and  if  hardly  any  show  such  a  loving  observation 
of  it  as  Homer  does  in  his  similes,  most  of  them,  sooner  or  later, 
pay  some  attention  to  it,  and,  when  they  do,  not  only  open  new 
prospects  to  the  eye  but  add  to  the  solidity  of  their  imagined 
worlds. 

In  general  it  may  be  said  that  heroic  poets  describe  natural 
scenes  when  they  are  to  fulfil  some  special  function  in  the  story. 
The  nature  of  such  functions  varies  and  may  be  anything  from  a 
need  to  create  a  convincing  setting  for  an  event  to  a  desire  to  stress 
some  contrast  or  unusual  situation.  At  one  extreme  are  those 
poets  who  describe  the  scene  in  which  an  action  takes  place 
because  it  is  unfamiliar  to  their  audiences  and  must  be  presented 
clearly  to  them  if  the  story  is  to  make  its  proper  erlect.  Such 
effects  are  to  be  found  in  the  poetry  of  the  Kalmucks,  who  lived 
till  very  recently  on  the  western  shore  of  the  Caspian  after  their 
great  migration  in  the  seventeenth  century,  but  whose  heroic 
legends  are  derived  from  their  original  home  in  central  Asia  on 
the  northern  borders  of  Tibet.  The  poets  take  some  care  to 
describe  the  homeland  of  the  great  Dzhangar,  if  only  because  it 
is  very  unlike  their  present  country  and  has  for  them  an  almost 
sacred  character  as  the  cradle  of  their  race  and  religion  and  the 
setting  of  their  heroic  past.  That  is  no  doubt  why  the  Song  of  the 
Wars  of  Dzhangar  with  the  Black  Prince  begins  with  an  elaborate 
account  of  the  region  in  the  Altai  where  Dzhangar  rules,  and 
especially  of  the  inland  sea  of  Shartak  : 

Up  and  down  move  the  waters  of  the  broad  sea  of  Shartak. 

Its  waters  weave  ice  into  silver. 

It  has  corals  and  pearls  on  its  surface. 

It  flowers  with  every  kind  of  water-lily. 

Whosoever  drinks  from  the  waters  of  that  sea, 

He  is  free  from  death  for  ever, 

Or  is  born  again  for  ever 

In  the  land  of  the  three  and  thirty  Holy  Ones 

In  the  very  hour  when  it  is  fated  for  him  to  die. 

From  that  sea  come  eight  thousand  rivers. 

They  flow  and  ripple  at  every  door 

Of  forty  million  subjects,  with  sandy  streams, 

From  endless  time  never  freezing 

In  all  four  seasons  of  the  year.1 

This  is  a  land  of  wonder  as  it  is  remembered  after  two  centuries 
of  exile,  but  it  is  none  the  less  suitable  to  the  heroic  figures  who 

1  Dzhangariada,  p.  95. 
133 


HEROIC  POETRY 

live  near  it.  They  are  so  far  above  ordinary  men  that  their  dwell- 
ings must  be  close  to  the  gods. 

Something  of  the  same  kind  may  be  seen  in  the  Yakuts.  They 
once  lived  in  the  region  of  Lake  Baikal  but  were  pushed  north- 
wards by  the  Buryats  and  now  inhabit  the  tundra  and  forests  of 
northern  Siberia  round  the  river  Lena.  Like  the  Kalmucks,  they 
brought  with  them  tales  which  preserve  memories  of  a  landscape 
unlike  that  which  is  now  theirs.  That  is  why  they  take  pains  to 
describe  the  setting  in  which  events  take  place.  So  the  poem 
Er  Sogotokh  begins  with  an  account  of  where  the  hero  lives  : 

On  our  blessed  earth, 

With  a  border  of  mountains  about  it, 

—  They  will  not  be  removed  — 

With  strong  upright  mountains  about  it, 

—  They  will  not  be  shaken  — 
With  mountains  of  stone  about  it, 

—  They  will  not  quiver  — 
Where  is  the  top  of  the  earth, 
With  water  in  the  midst, 
Covered  with  turf, 

Lived  a  certain  rich  man.1 

This  is  unlike  anything  in  the  poet's  own  country  and  must  be 
made  real  to  his  audience.  It  has  the  mysterious  appeal  of  the 
remote  and  unfamiliar,  and  even  if  it  reflects  the  landscape  of  the 
Baikal  region,  it  has  been  glorified  by  years  of  separation.  In 
The  Deathless  Knight  the  scene  is  set  with  like  detail  but  in  a  differ- 
ent landscape.  This  time  the  poet  is  concerned  with  a  vast  open 
space,  and  he  describes  it  carefully,  because  it  too  is  unlike  his 
familiar  tundra  : 

In  the  glistening  middle  of  the  earth, 
On  a  dazzling  white  open  plain, 

—  Though  it  race  for  the  whole  day  long 
The  stork  does  not  fly  over  it  — 

Amidst  the  white  spaces  of  a  white  open  plain 

—  The  crane  cannot  fly  around  it  — 
There  settled  and  lives,  they  say, 

In  rich  state,  with  many  possessions, 
Bai  Kharakhkhan-Toion.2 

This  setting  too  must  be  made  vivid  if  the  hero,  who  lives  in  it, 
is  to  be  understood  by  the  audience.  Part  of  his  situation  is  that 
he  lives  in  this  remote  world  ;  it  explains  why  such  strange  things 
happen  to  him.  The  Yakut  poets  draw  on  tradition  to  create 

1  Yastremski,  p.  13.  2  Idem,  p.  100. 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

unusual  landscapes,  but  their  art  is  none  the  less  disciplined  by  a 
factual  realism  which  makes  their  descriptions  significant. 

Once  or  twice  Homer  has  to  tell  of  remote  regions  which  no 
man  in  his  audience  could  have  seen.  Odysseus'  wanderings  take 
him  to  many  strange  places,  and  the  legends  about  them  may 
well  have  travelled  far  both  in  space  and  in  time.  For  instance,  he 
sails  to  Circe's  home,  which  tradition  connected  with  the  remote 
east.  Her  island,  Aeaea,  may  indeed  be  a  reflection  of  some  place 
in  the  Black  Sea,  visited  by  early  explorers,  who  left  traces  of  their 
discoveries  in  stories  of  the  Argonauts.  Homer  knows  that  Aeaea 
is  far  away,  since  he  says  that  there  the  Dawn  has  her  halls  and 
dancing-places  and  the  Sun  his  risings.1  But  when  he  comes  to 
describe  it,  he  makes  it  like  any  attractive  Greek  island.  At  first 
sight  it  looks  uninhabited,  and  wild  stags  rove  on  it,  but  soon 
Odysseus  sees  smoke  rising  and  descries  the  palace  of  Circe,2 
made  of  polished  stones  in  an  open  ground.3  What  might  have 
been  a  pure  fairy-tale  becomes  circumstantial  and  convincing. 
Again,  it  is  possible  that  in  his  account  of  the  Laestrygonians  with 
their  rocky  coast,  their  monstrous  giantess,  and  their  long  northern 
day,  Homer  repeats  far-travelled  legends  of  Scandinavia,  which 
may  have  come  to  the  Aegean  by  the  same  route  as  the  amber- 
traders  from  the  Baltic.  He  sees  that  this  is  a  wild,  forbidding 
place  and  deftly  sketches  it  in  four  lines,  telling  how  the 
harbour  has  a  narrow  entrance  enclosed  by  steep  rocks,  with 
jutting  headlands  facing  each  other  at  the  entrance.4  The  descrip- 
tion would  apply  to  many  Norwegian  fjords  and  is  poetically 
appropriate  for  the  hard  people  of  the  Laestrygonians. 

With  Circe  and  the  Laestrygonians  Homer  merely  gives  a 
short  sketch  of  the  physical  surroundings,  but  once  at  least 
circumstances  compel  him  to  attempt  more  and  to  show  what  he 
can  do  with  natural  beauty.  When  Odysseus  is  wrecked  on 
Calypso's  island  far  away  to  the  west,  it  is  important  to  the  story 
that  he  is  a  castaway  in  a  place  where  no  human  beings  and  hardly 
even  any  gods  ever  go.  It  is  also  important  that  Calypso,  who 
loves  him  and  wishes  to  keep  him  with  her  for  ever,  should  have 
a  home  worthy  of  her  divine  nature  and  rich  in  attractions  to 
seduce  the  hero  into  staying  with  her  instead  of  returning  home. 
The  beauty  of  her  dwelling  can  hardly  be  that  of  the  familiar 
world ;  it  must  be  remote  and  wild  and  outside  human  society. 
So  Homer  makes  her  live  in  a  cave  which  has  its  own  charms  and 
graces.  When  Hermes  is  sent  by  the  gods  to  tell  her  to  release 

1   Od.  xii,  3-4.  z  Ibid,  x,  149-50. 

3  Ibid.  210-11.  4  Ibid,  v,  63-73. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Odysseus,  he  is  greeted  by  a  sight  to  gladden  the  eyes.1  Calypso 
sits  in  her  dwelling  plying  her  golden  shuttle,  while  outside  is  a 
scene  of  great  beauty  and  brilliance.  Round  about  is  a  wood  of 
alder,  poplar,  and  cypress,  in  which  many  land-birds  and  sea- 
birds  nest,  while  on  the  cave  clusters  a  vine.  Four  streams  are 
there,  and  meadows  of  violet  and  parsley.  No  wonder  that  even 
an  immortal,  on  seeing  it,  would  be  delighted  in  his  heart.  Homer 
means  us  to  enjoy  the  scene,  since  it  plays  an  important  part  in  his 
story.  It  is  from  this  beauty  and  from  the  loving  company  of 
Calypso  that  Odysseus  must  tear  himself  away,  if  he  is  to  go  home, 
and  even  then  he  will  find  that  many  troubles  await  him.  In  his 
heroic  life  he  must  reject  this  ease  and  beauty  and  face  stern 
tasks  and  hard  conditions. 

Description  of  this  kind  can  hardly  be  expected  in  the  many 
passages  of  heroic  poetry  which  treat  of  war.  Yet  the  setting  of  a 
battle  may  well  be  important  to  it,  and  there  are  times  when  the 
poets  feel  that  they  must  complete  the  picture  by  some  hint  of  a 
natural  background.  Nature  lays  down  rules  for  the  seasons  of 
warfare,  which  the  heroes  must  observe.  It  is  true  that  in  much 
heroic  poetry  scant  attention  is  paid  to  the  time  of  year,  perhaps 
because  in  many  countries  warfare  is  confined  to  the  summer  and 
the  audiences  do  not  need  to  be  told  so.  Sometimes,  however, 
the  poet  sees  that  physical  conditions  are  relevant  to  his  tale  and 
makes  something  of  them.  For  instance,  Jugoslav  poets  have  a 
good  eye  for  the  time  of  year.  When  Harambasa  Curta  goes  out 
to  harass  the  Turks,  it  is  still  winter,  when  even  haiduks  are 
expected  to  be  resting  in  peace.  So  the  poet  stresses  the  loneliness 
of  the  countryside  : 

Curta  hastened  to  the  Travnik  highway 
Through  the  virgin  snow,  on  painful  pathways 
And  untrodden  tracks,  where  no  man  wanders 
Save  the  haiduk,  when  in  search  of  booty 
He  by  stealth  descends  upon  the  highways, 
And  except  the  dusky-coated  wolf-pack 
That  in  secret  creeps  about  the  cow-byres, 
Passes  from  one  sheepfold  to  another, 
Watching  sharply  for  the  meat  it  feeds  on.2 

This  is  a  winter  scene,  described  in  some  detail,  because  it  is 
unusual.  Conversely,  when  the  spring  comes,  it  is  time  for  action, 
and  the  first  leaves  and  flowers  are  a  challenge  to  brave  exploits. 
Like  their  Serb  opponents,  the  Turks  too  turn  to  action  : 

When  at  last  dawned  bright  St.  George's  feast-day, 
And  the  mountain-sides  with  leaves  were  covered, 
1   Od.  x,  87  ff.  2  Morison,  p.  22. 

136 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

And  the  black  earth  gay  with  grass  and  blossoms, 
And  the  lambkins  sported  in  the  meadows, 
And  the  horses  in  the  plain  were  hobbled, 
And  the  wooded  hills  were  decked  with  mallows, 
Then  the  vizier  indited  letters.1 

The  poet  suggests  how  the  revival  of  life  in  spring  makes  men 
also  active.  If  the  Turks  are  getting  busy,  the  Serbs  too  must  be 
up  and  doing. 

Homer  hardly  connects  the  Trojan  War  with  nature  in  this 
way,  but  he  is  not  indifferent  to  its  natural  background.  He  marks 
the  mountains  which  are  visible  from  the  plain  of  Troy,  and  once 
or  twice  mentions  local  features  which  have  their  own  interest, 
like  the  two  streams,  one  cold  and  one  hot,  which  are  the  source 
of  the  river  Scamander.2  Past  these  streams  Achilles  pursues 
Hector  in  the  last  fight,  and  Homer  pauses  to  tell  of  them,  turning 
for  a  moment  our  attention  from  the  fierce  struggle  to  the  natural 
scene.  Perhaps  this  place  was  connected  by  legend  with  the  fight 
of  Achilles  and  Hector,  but  in  the  poem  it  has  its  own  function  of 
reminding  us  that  even  a  struggle  like  this  takes  place  among 
natural  surroundings.  Homer,  however,  displays  a  more  remark- 
able art  earlier  in  Achilles'  career  of  vengeful  fury.  When  he 
fights  the  river-god  Scamander,  Hephaestus,  the  fire-god,  comes 
to  the  river's  help  and  burns  the  countryside  and  makes  the  water 
boil: 

Burned  were  the  poplar-trees  and  the  myrtle-bushes  and  rushes, 
Burned  also  were  the  grass  and  the  meadowsweet  and  the  parsley, 
Which  grew  abundantly  by  the  beautiful  streams  of  the  river  ; 
Troubled  too  were  the  eels  and  the  fishes  that  swam  in  the  eddies 
Leaping  this  way  and  that  in  the  beautiful  streams  of  the  river, 
Troubled  sore  by  the  breath  of  the  cunning  fire-god  Hephaestus.3 

Such  trees  and  plants  as  the  fire  consumes  may  still  be  seen  on  the 
plain  of  Troy  by  the  banks  of  the  Simois  and  the  Scamander. 
Homer  is  convincingly  realistic  in  this  scene  of  which  he  cannot 
have  seen  the  like,  showing  what  things  happen  when  a  hero  fights 
with  a  god. 

A  hint  of  natural  scenery  may  stress  the  atmosphere  of  some 
grave  occasion.  So  in  the  Norse  Atlakvitha,  when  Gunnar  and 
his  companions  ride  on  their  doomed  expedition  to  Atli,  there  is 
something  appropriate  about  the  places  through  which  they  pass 
on  their  horses  : 

Then  let  the  bold  heroes      their  bit-champing  horses 

On  the  mountains  gallop,      and  through  Myrkwood  the  secret.4 

1   Karadzic,  iv,  p.  185.     Trs.  Monson.  2  //.  xxii,  147-52. 

3  Ibid,  xxi,  350-55.  4  Atlakvitha,  13,  1-2. 

137 


HEROIC  POETRY 

The  background  of  mountain  and  dark  forest  is  merely  hinted  at, 
but  is  enough  to  call  up  the  wild  scenes  through  which  Gunnar 
and  his  companions  make  their  long  journey.  Another  small  and 
striking  touch  can  be  seen  in  the  Short  Lay  of  Sigurth,  where 
Brynhild,  who  is  married  to  Gunnar  but  secretly  in  love  with 
Sigurth,  cannot  display  her  feelings  and  goes  out  alone  with  them 
at  night : 

Oft  did  she  go      with  grieving  heart 

On  the  glacier's  ice      at  even-tide, 

When  Guthrun  then      to  her  bed  was  gone, 

And  the  bedclothes  Sigurth      about  her  laid.1 

The  introduction  of  the  glacier  shows  Brynhild's  need  to  be  alone 
with  forbidding  powers  of  nature  when  her  rival  and  the  man 
whom  they  both  love  are  in  bed.  There  is  a  parallel  between  her 
outward  state  and  the  chill  hopelessness  of  her  situation.  So  an 
even  smaller  touch  adds  magic  to  the  moment  when  the  smith, 
Volund,  is  discovered  in  his  hiding-place  by  Nithuth's  men  : 

By  night  went  his  men,      their  mail-coats  were  studded, 
Their  shields  in  the  waning      moonlight  shone.2 

The  moonlight  not  only  explains  why  Volund  is  out  —  he  hunts 
at  night  —  but  gives  an  eerie  atmosphere  to  the  sinister  plot 
against  him. 

These  touches  are  strictly  subordinated  to  the  story  and 
important  mainly  for  it,  but  there  are  times  when  poets  make  use 
of  a  situation  to  indulge  a  taste  for  a  little  description  for  its  own 
sake.  This  is  not  very  common,  but  when  it  comes,  it  adds  an 
unexpected  touch  of  colour  to  the  story.  For  instance,  in  the  Kara- 
Kirghiz  Manas,  when  Alaman  Bet  quarrels  with  Chubak,  the 
weather  suddenly  turns  foul,  and,  though  the  poet  makes  use  of 
this  to  show  how  Manas  separates  the  heroes  in  the  middle  of  a 
hideous  storm,  the  storm  itself  receives  a  full  amount  of  attention 
as  something  impressive  and  interesting  in  itself : 

Suddenly  the  storm  grew  wild  ; 
Everything  around  was  darkened, 
Black  clouds  came  over  the  sky, 
Thunder  roared  in  the  mountains, 
Suddenly  rain  poured  from  the  sky  — 
Such  rain  no  man  had  ever  seen  ! 
Piercing  snowflakes  fell  in  swarms 
And  blinded  the  eyes. 
To  their  knees  it  swept  the  horses. 
People  could  not  open  their  eyes  — 
It  burned  their  eyes  with  piercing  snow. 

1  Sigurtharkvitha  en  Skamma,  8.  2   Volundarkvitha>  9,  3-4. 

138 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

People  could  not  open  their  lips  — 
It  froze  their  tongues  with  frost. 
From  the  north  it  blew  with  a  storm, 
From  the  south  it  soaked  them  with  rain, 
From  the  east  a  hurricane  blew  on  them, 
From  the  west  a  water-spout  fell  on  them.1 

This  is  something  of  a  show-piece,  neatly  introduced  at  an  im- 
portant stage  in  the  action,  but  more  than  the  actual  story  really 
needs.  In  contrast  to  its  fierce  temper  we  may  set  another  piece, 
which  the  poet  obviously  enjoys,  from  the  Ainu  Kutune  Sliirka. 
When  the  hero,  in  search  of  a  mysterious  golden  otter,  comes  to 
the  sea,  which  he  has  never  seen  before,  he  pauses  to  say  something 
about  it : 

And  coming  from  the  sea 

A  pleasant  breeze  blew  on  me  and  the  face  of  the  sea 

Was  wrinkled  like  a  reed-mat. 

And  on  it  the  sea-birds 

Tucking  their  heads  under  their  tails, 

Bobbing  up  their  heads  from  under  their  tails 

Called  to  one  another 

With  sweet  voices  across  the  sea.2 

That,  after,  all  is  what  a  young  man  might  see  in  the  sea  on  looking 
at  it  for  the  first  time,  but  it  is  none  the  less  a  charming  piece  of 
poetry  for  its  own  sake.  In  both  these  passages  the  poets  go  rather 
beyond  the  usual  limits  which  heroic  poetry  allows  to  descriptions 
of  nature,  but  they  are  careful  to  fit  their  observations  into  the 
story. 

The  art  of  adapting  the  background  to  the  tone  and  temper  of 
events  can  be  seen  in  Roland,  when  the  poet  prepares  the  setting 
for  the  grim  fight  in  the  pass  at  Roncesvalles.  He  sketches,  very 
briefly,  the  scene  : 

High  are  the  peaks,  the  valleys  shadowful, 
Swarthy  the  rocks,  the  narrows  wonderful.3 

It  is  only  a  hint,  but  it  does  something  important.  The  whole 
scene  rises  before  our  eyes  and  remains  with  us  through  the  long 
account  of  the  fight.  It  is  appropriate  that  such  a  struggle  should 
take  place  in  these  wild  surroundings.  It  is  moreover  a  prepara- 
tion for  a  bolder  and  grander  effect  which  comes  later  when  the 
poet  makes  nature  take  part  in  the  catastrophe  of  Roland  and 
his  peers.  When  the  Franks  meet  the  Saracens  in  the  pass,  an 
unearthly  tempest  and  darkness  possess  the  earth  : 

1  Manas,  p.  150. 

2  Trs.  Arthur  Waley,  Botteghe  Oscure,  vii  (1951),  p.  219. 

3  Roland,  814-15. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Torment  arose,  right  marvellous,  in  France, 

Tempest  there  was,  of  wind  and  thunder  black, 

With  rain  and  hail,  so  much  could  not  be  spanned  ; 

Fell  thunderbolts  often  on  every  hand, 

And  verily  the  earth  quaked  in  answer  back 

From  Saint  Michael  of  Peril  unto  Sanz, 

From  Besun£un  to  the  harbour  of  Guitsand  ; 

No  house  stood  there  but  straight  its  walls  must  crack  ; 

In  full  midday  the  darkness  was  so  grand, 

Save  the  sky  split,  no  light  was  in  the  land.1 

Almost  certainly  the  poet  has  in  mind  the  darkness  which  covered 
the  earth  at  the  Crucifixion.  His  battle  is  itself  a  tremendous 
Christian  sacrifice,  in  which  Roland  and  his  companions  lay  down 
their  lives  for  their  faith.  So  perhaps  the  audience  would  see  it 
and  would  for  that  reason  accept  the  miracle.  It  marks  the  true 
meaning  of  the  battle,  and,  though  its  events  are  beyond  experi- 
ence, they  are  described  with  a  factual  realism  which  makes  them 
convincing.  The  extent  and  the  horror  of  the  great  darkness  are 
seen  with  a  clear,  firm  vision. 

The  poet  of  Roland  combines  this  idea  with  another.    The 
vast  storm  has  a  meaning  which  men  do  not  see  : 

Beheld  these  things  with  terror  every  man, 
And  many  said  :  "  We  in  the  Judgement  stand  ; 
The  end  of  time  is  presently  at  hand  ". 
They  spake  no  truth  ;  they  did  not  understand  ; 
'Twas  the  great  day  of  mourning  for  Rollant.2 

When  nature  mourns  for  Roland  in  this  awful,  tragic  way,  the 
poet  allows  himself  something  beyond  the  usual  scope  of  heroic 
poetry.  Yet  what  he  says  is  understandable  enough.  When  a 
hero  dies,  the  world  is  so  much  the  poorer  that  even  inanimate 
nature  may  be  imagined  as  feeling  his  loss.  A  similar  idea, 
conceived  in  a  gentler  and  quieter  spirit,  may  be  seen  in  some 
Bulgarian  poems.  They  use  the  theme  less  for  death  than  for 
parting,  but  their  touch  is  sure  and  successful.  When  Liben 
leaves  the  forest,  he  says  good-bye  to  it,  and  the  forest,  which 
speaks  to  nobody  else,  speaks  to  him.  It  reminds  him  of  what  he 
has  done  in  it  and  continues  : 

"  Hitherto,  my  warrior  Liben, 
The  old  mountain  was  your  mother, 
And  your  lover  the  green  forest 
In  its  dress  of  tufted  leafage, 
Freshened  by  the  gentle  breezes  ; 

1  Roland,  1423-32.  2  Ibid.  1433-7. 

140 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

Grasses  made  your  bed  for  sleeping, 
Leaves  of  trees  provided  cover, 
Limpid  streamlets  gave  you  water, 
In  the  woods  birds  carolled  for  you, 
For  you,  Liben,  was  their  message  : 
'  Make  glad  with  the  heroes,  Liben, 
For  the  forest  makes  glad  with  you, 
And  for  you  makes  glad  the  mountain, 
And  for  you  make  glad  fresh  waters.'  "  l 

This  has  no  such  heights  and  depths  as  the  mourning  of  nature  in 
Roland  but  it  is  more  lyrical.  A  simpler,  if  similar  note  is  struck 
in  another  poem  where  the  hero  plots  a  dangerous  enterprise  : 

The  green  forest  was  lamenting, 
Both  the  forest  and  the  mountain, 
And  the  leaves  within  the  forest, 
And  the  birds  among  the  woodlands, 
And  the  grasses  in  the  meadows, 
For  the  gallant  hero  Pantcho.2 

Such  pieces  portray  the  intimacy  with  nature  which  the  h<To  has 
enjoyed,  and  comes  quite  easily  in  its  context.  The  literary  fancy, 
which  has  been  unfairly  denigrated  as  the  "  pathetic  fallacy  ", 
has  here  a  real  truth  to  experience.  When  the  poet  makes  the 
forest  speak  or  weep,  he  portrays  in  a  vivid  way  what  are  really 
the  hero's  own  thoughts,  his  feelings  about  leaving  a  place  where 
he  has  long  found  a  happy  life. 

This  sense  of  animate  nature  is  characteristic  of  Slavonic 
poetry.  In  some  Russian  poems  it  takes  a  special  form  when 
nature  weeps  for  some  great  man's  death.  This  may  be  quite 
simple  as  in  a  poem  on  the  death  of  Ivan  the  Terrible  : 

Now,  our  father,  bright  moon  ! 

Why  do  you  not  shine  as  of  old, 

Not  as  of  old,  not  as  in  the  past  ? 

Why  do  you  not  rise  from  behind  the  cloud, 

But  hide  yourself  in  a  black  mist  ? 3 

The  greater  the  dead  man,  the  greater  the  distress,  and  it  is 
right  that  in  her  Tale  of  Lenin  Marfa  Kryukova  should  put  on  a 
full-dress  performance.  After  comparing  Lenin's  death  to  the 
setting  sun,  the  moon,  and  a  star,  she  advances  from  symbol 
to  description  and  makes  creatures  of  nature  share  the  distress  of 
men  : 

Birds  flew  up  then  like  falcons  high  to  the  skies, 
Fishes  then  sank  to  the  depth  of  the  seas, 

1   Dozon,  p.  38.  2  Ibid.  p.  46. 

3  Kireevski,  vi,  p.  206  ;  Chadwick,  R.H.P.  p.  206. 

141 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Martens  scampered  over  the  islands, 

Friendly  bears  scattered  through  the  dark  woods, 

And  people  put  on  black  clothes, 

Black  clothes  they  put  on,  sorrowful  clothes.1 

Lenin's  death  is  seen  as  a  cosmic  event  which  disturbs  the  course 
of  nature.  In  this  case  nature  is  not  so  much  lamenting  for  him 
as  distressed  and  frightened.  The  hero  is  set  on  a  vast  stage  in 
which  men  and  animals  have  come  equally  under  his  spell  and 
responded  to  his  efforts  to  master  and  change  the  world.  Behind 
Kryukova's  bold  vision  is  the  traditional  idea  that  a  hero  is  so 
closely  bound  to  his  surroundings  that  they  are  inevitably  affected 
by  any  change  in  their  relations  with  him. 

This  general  assumption  takes  a  special  form  in  a  number  of 
Greek  poems,  in  which  nature  is  so  closely  connected  with  the 
lives  of  the  klephts  and  their  struggles  with  the  Turks  that  she 
cannot  but  show  human  emotions  when  anything  happens  to  her 
friends.  It  is  above  all  the  mountains  who  play  such  a  part.  A 
hero  climbs  them  by  moonlight  and  hears  them  speaking  to  the 
winds  and  saying  that  it  is  not  the  snows  and  hailstones  which 
trouble  them  but  the  Turk,  Deli  Achmet,  who  treads  upon  them.2 
Another  two  mountains  talk  about  the  klephts  going  down  to  the 
plains,  and  one  asks  the  plain  to  look  after  them  ;  otherwise  it  will 
melt  its  snows  onto  the  plain  and  turn  it  into  a  sea.3  When  the 
klephts  are  attacked  by  the  Turks,  Mount  Maina  is  wet  with 
weeping.4  When  the  snows  begin  to  cover  the  mountains,  the 
klepht  must  go  to  the  plains  and  risk  capture  and  death,  but 
when  spring  comes  the  mountains  are  the  home  of  freedom  and 
hope,  and  Olympus  and  Kissabos  are  justified  in  debating  which 
does  more  for  him  : 

Olympus  —  see  !  —  and  Kissabos,  two  mountains  in  a  quarrel : 
Which  shall  pour  down  the  heavy  rain,  which  shall  pour  down  the 

snowstorm. 

'Twas  Kissabos  that  sent  the  rain,  Olympus  sent  the  snowstorm. 
Olympus  turned  his  mighty  head,  to  Kissabos  thus  spake  he  : 
"  Nay,  scold  me  not,  Sir  Kissabos,  by  feet  of  Turks  betrampled, 
For  I  am  Olympus  full  of  years,  in  all  the  world  renowned, 
And  forty-two  my  summits  are,  and  sixty-two  my  fountains  ; 
And  on  each  peak  a  banner  free,  'neath  every  branch  an  outlaw  ".s 

In  this  way  the  Greek  poets  make  nature  the  background  for  the 
seasonal  warfare  of  the  klephts. 

In  marked  contrast  to  their  treatment  of  nature  is  the  way 

1  Kaun,  p.  191.  2  Garnett,  p.  310.  3  Idem,  p.  311. 

4  Idem,  p.  321.  5  Politis,  23.    Trs.  W.  J.  Entwistle. 

142 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

in  which  heroic  poets  treat  the  work  of  men's  hands,  especially 
their  dwellings.  Dwellings  are  important  because  they  reflect  a 
man's  style  and  character.  They  are  visible  emblems  of  his 
worth  and  pride  and  ambition,  and,  more  subtly,  they  reflect  the 
undercurrents  of  his  being.  Qt  is  right  and  proper  that,  when  the 
poet  of  Beowulf  presents  his  picture  of  a  wise  and  good  king  in 
Hrothgar,  he  should  make  him  build  a  great  hall  to  be  a  sign  of  his 
royal  dignity  and  a  proper  place  for  his  hospitable  entertainment 
of  guests.  The  hall  is  an  achievement  of  stylish  craftsmanship  : 

Broad  of  gable,      and  bright  with  gold  : 

That  was  the  fairest,      mid  folk  of  earth, 

Of  houses  'neath  heaven,      where  Hrothgar  lived, 

And  the  gleam  of  it  lightened      o'er  lands  afar.1 

It  is  this  hall  which  is  to  be  defiled  by  the  man-eating  raids  of 
Grendel,  and  there  is  a  tragic  and  ironical  contrast  between  its 
builder's  intentions  and  its  actual  fatej  As  a  sinister  counterpart 
to  it  we  may  set  the  halls  of  Atli,  king  of  the  Huns,  as  the  Norse 
poet  sketches  them.  They  are  the  true  home  of  a  man  of  blood, 
a  warrior  who  plots  a  hideous  end  for  his  guests  : 

Then  they  saw  Atli's  halls,      and  his  watch-towers  high, 
On  the  walls  so  lofty      stood  the  warriors  of  Buthli ; 
The  hall  of  the  southrons      with  seats  was  surrounded, 
With  targets  bound      and  shields  full  bright.2 

The  Norse  poets  can  seldom  spare  time  to  describe  a  hero's 
dwelling,  and  in  this  case  the  poet  probably  does  so  because  it 
adds  to  the  impression  of  embattled  power  which  he  wishes  Atli  to 
make. 

The  Asiatic  poets  also  describe  dwellings,  though  they  are 
usually  different  from  the  European  kind.  The  great  Manas  has 
an  appropriate  home  in  a  fortress,  guarded,  like  Atli's,  by  armed 
warriors  : 

His  fortress,  full  of  people, 

Seethes  like  a  large  kettle  ; 

In  that  fortress  Manas  has 

Abundance  of  every  possession  ; 

That  fortress  is  more  solid  than  a  hill. 

In  its  windows  of  pewter 

Are  twelve  unsleeping  guards, 

Each  one  in  rank  a  warrior. 

Each  of  the  guards  holds 

A  knife  of  chased  steel.3 

1   Beowulf,  308-11.  2  Atlakvitha,  14.  *  Manas,  p.  34. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Here  the  emphasis  is  on  the  impregnability  of  Manas'  dwelling. 
The  Kalmuck  poets  aim  at  a  different  effect.  The  great  hero, 
Dzhangar,  lives  not  in  a  fortress  but  in  a  tent,  as  befits  his  nomadic 
nation : 

Beautiful  arise  the  motley  yellow  domes. 

They  are  adorned  with  diamonds  of  four  colours. 

On  each  summit  are  stablished 

His  invincible  sceptres. 

He  raises  it  up  in  the  centre  of  all  earth's  kingdoms. 

They  have  built  each  fold  of  it  outwards, 

They  have  built  it  over  the  abyss. 

At  a  height  of  two  hundred  yards 

Above  the  clouds  of  the  sky 

Stands  the  motley  yellow  chamber.1 

The  Kalmuck  poet  sees  the  home  of  Dzhangar  through  a  pardon- 
able mist  of  home-sickness.  This  is  what  a  people  who  have 
moved  to  the  Caspian  believe  their  old  home  in  the  Altai  to  be. 
It  is  a  glorification  of  the  nomad's  tent,  and  remains,  despite  all  its 
size  and  decorations,  simple  enough.  Tents  can  present  other 
charms  than  these.  In  Arabia  they  are  the  normal  type  of  lodging, 
and  the  poet  of  The  Stealing  of  the  Mare  is  ready  with  a  surprise 
for  the  hero,  Abu  Zeyd,  when  he  comes  in  disguise  to  the  dwelling 
of  his  enemy.  The  Arabian  poet  has  a  more  observant  eye  than 
the  Kalmuck,  and  his  description  has  its  own  delightful  realism  : 

And  I  cast  my  eyes  around,  and  lo,  like  the  stars  for  number, 

Stood  the  tents  in  their  ranks,  as  it  were  the  Pleiades  in  heaven, 

Each  a  cluster  of  stars  ;  and  among  them  a  pavilion 

Set  for  a  leader  of  men  ;  and  mares  were  tethered  round  it, 

And  dromedaries  trained  as  it  were  for  a  distant  riding  ; 

And  hard  beside  a  tent  of  silk,  a  fair  refreshment 

To  the  eyes  as  rain  on  the  hills,  the  blest  abode  of  women. 

And  next  in  a  lofty  place,  set  on  a  windy  platform, 

As  it  were  a  fortress  in  size,  the  booth  of  the  great  council, 

Wonderful  in  its  spread,  its  length  full  sixty  paces. 

And  tears  came  to  my  eyes,  for  none  in  the  world  was  like  it.2 

In  this  the  imagination  is  tempered  by  a  solid  sense  of  fact.  This 
is  the  kind  of  encampment  which  every  Arabian  would  wish  to  be 
his  own. 

The  Russian  poets  lack  this  refinement  of  observation,  but 
their  descriptions  of  dwellings  have  a  native  charm  and  truth. 
Sometimes  they  are  unexpectedly  modest.  When  Sadko  finds  the 
Tsar  of  the  Sea,  the  royal  dwelling  is  only  an  izba  or  hut ; 3  it  is 

1  Dzhangariada,  p.  96.  2  Blunt,  ii,  p.  144. 

3  Kireevski,  v,  p.  43. 

144 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

true  that  it  is  a  very  special  hut,  "  built  all  of  wood  ",  but  it  is 
none  the  less  the  kind  of  hut  in  which  a  Russian  peasant  dwells. 
Rather  more  bourgeois  in  its  solidity  and  comfort  is  the  home  of 
which  Dyuk  Stepanovich  boasts  to  Prince  Vladimir,  comparing  it 
more  than  favourably  with  the  standard  of  homes  at  Kiev  : 

The  floors  are  of  white  hazel-wood, 
The  balustrades  are  made  of  silver, 
Crimson  carpets  are  spread.1 

This  is  wealth  as  a  Russian  peasant  sees  it  from  outside.  More 
adventurous  is  the  house  of  the  rake,  Churilo  Plenkovich,  which 
fills  Prince  Vladimir  with  awe  and  envy  and  suits  the  extravagant 
character  of  its  owner  : 

The  floor  was  of  pure  silver, 
The  stoves  were  all  of  glazed  tiles, 
The  pillars  were  covered  with  silver, 
Churilo's  ceiling  was  covered  with  black  sable, 
On  his  walls  were  printed  curtains, 
In  the  curtains  were  sash  windows, 
The  hall  was  a  copy  of  the  sky. 
The  full  moon  of  heaven  rode  aloft.2 

The  poet  makes  skilful  use  of  an  unexpected  piece  of  information, 
and  models  Churilo's  home  on  the  apartment  of  the  daughters  of 
Tsar  Alexis  in  the  Kremlin,  where  the  wall  was  painted  with 
frescoes  and  the  part  round  the  windows  represented  a  blue  sky 
with  white  clouds.3  This  is  the  height  of  splendour  and  well 
suited  to  Churilo's  smart  and  extravagant  tastes. 

The  Yakuts  resemble  the  Russians  in  the  limited  range  of  their 
experience  and  in  their  sense  of  the  close  relation  between  a  man's 
house  and  his  character,  but  they  spend  more  time  in  describing 
dwellings,  partly  because  their  stories  are  set  in  remote  regions 
on  which  any  information  is  interesting.  In  The  Deathless  Knight 
the  home  of  Bai-Kharakhkhan,  his  wife,  and  eighteen  children,  is 
presented  at  some  length  for  audiences  who  are  presumably 
interested  in  the  building  of  houses  in  a  densely  forested  country 
and  know  something  about  it.  First  the  setting  is  described ; 
then  the  solidity  of  the  structure  : 

Like  an  ox  lying  down  after  drinking  water, 
The  main*  door  has  a  hanging 
Of  the  skins  of  eight  fine  bears  ; 
Seven  men  could  not  open  it. 

1  Rybnikov,  i,  p.  101.  2  Idem,  ii,  p.  528. 

3  Cf.  Chadwick,  R.H.P.  p.  96,  with  reference  to  Rambaud,  "  Les  Tsarines 
de  Moscou  ",  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  (1873),  p.  516. 

H5 


HEROIC  POETRY 

The  walls  are  such  that  a  strong  horse 
Charging  against  them  would  lose  its  breath  ; 
They  are  made  from  strong  larch-trees. 
There  are  small  windows 
In  nine  places  on  every  wall, 
A  door  with  such  fastenings 
That  eight  men  cannot  open  it ; 
With  such  bolts  of  larch-wood, 
That  ten  men  cannot  move  it.1 

This  building  may  be  made  of  simple  materials  in  a  simple  way, 
but  it  is  in  its  own  way  a  fortress,  impressive  to  an  uneducated 
audience  and  worthy  of  the  strange  character  who  lives  in  it. 

Though  dwellings  are  usually  described  because  they  are 
essential  to  the  story,  there  is  no  reason  why  poets  should  not 
appreciate  their  charm  and  give  to  them  an  attractive  poetry. 
The  Ainu  poet  of  Kutune  Shirka  does  this  with  some  success  for 
the  home  of  his  hero.  The  hero  has  lived  indoors  all  his  life  until 
he  receives  supernatural  promptings  to  go  abroad  and  catch  a 
mysterious  golden  otter.  The  first  sight  that  greets  him  is  that 
of  his  own  home,  which  moves  him  to  great  delight : 

Then  I  went  out  at  the  door, 

And  saw  what  in  all  my  life 

Never  once  yet  I  had  seen  — 

What  it  was  like  outside  my  home, 

Outside  the  house  where  I  was  reared. 

So  this  was  our  Castle  ! 

Never  could  I  have  guessed 

How  beautiful  it  was. 

The  fencing  done  long  ago 

Standing  so  crooked  ; 

The  new  fencing 

So  high  and  straight. 

The  old  fencing  like  a  black  cloud, 

The  new  fencing  like  a  white  cloud. 

They  stretched  around  the  castle 

Like  a  great  mass  of  cloud  — 

So  pleasant,  so  lovely  ! 

The  crossbars  laid  on  top 

Zigzagged  as  the  fence  ran. 

The  stakes  below 

Were  swallowed  deep  in  the  earth. 

In  the  tie-holes  below 

Rats  had  made  their  nest. 

In  the  tie-holes  above 

Little  birds  had  made  their  nest. 

Here  and  there,  with  spaces  between, 

1  Yastremski,  p.  100. 
146 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

The  holes  were  patches  of  black. 

And  when  the  wind  blew  into  them 

There  was  a  lovely  music 

Like  the  voices  of  small  birds. 

Across  the  hillside,  across  the  shore 

Many  zigzag  paths 

Elbowed  their  way. 

The  marks  of  digging-sticks  far  off 

Showed  faintly  black  ; 

The  marks  of  sickles  far  off 

Showed  faintly  white. 

The  ways  went  pleasantly  ; 

They  were  beautiful,  they  were  lovely.1 

The  poet  is  evidently  determined  to  describe  the  best  kind  of 
Ainu  dwelling  and  does  so  by  the  ingenious  ruse  that  his  hero  has 
never  seen  his  own  home  from  the  outside  before.  He  relies 
entirely  on  truth  and  observation  for  his  success,  and  such  is  his 
feeling  for  dwellings  of  this  kind  that  he  can  easily  dispense  with 
fancy  or  exaggeration.  He  feels  the  poetical  appeal  of  such  a 
scene,  and  has  a  painter's  eye  for  its  lines  and  perspectives.  If  the 
Yakut  poet  likes  strength  and  solidity,  the  Ainu  likes  grace  and 
elegance. 

Such  descriptions  are  usually  based  on  a  firm  foundation  of 
familiar  fact.  The  audience  must  first  feel  familiar  with  the 
imagined  scene,  and  only  when  that  is  assured  is  the  poet  free  to 
add  his  touches  of  fancy.  Homer  makes  his  heroes  live  in  real 
palaces.  Of  course  their  style  has  a  Mediterranean  grandeur  such 
as  is  not  to  be  found  in  Asia,  and  his  taste  and  experience  are  much 
closer  to  our  own.  He  does  not  often  indulge  in  description,  but 
when  he  does,  he  has  an  eye  for  visible  splendour.  When  Tele- 
machus  arrives  at  Sparta  and  sees  the  palace  of  Menelaus,  he  is 
amazed  at  its  brilliance,  for  on  the  high-roofed  house  there  is  a 
glitter  as  of  the  sun  or  the  moon.2  It  is  only  a  slight  touch,  but  it 
is  appropriate  to  the  palace  of  a  great  prince  who  has  amassed 
great  wealth  on  his  long  wanderings.  The  theme,  merely  suggested 
here,  is  developed  at  length  for  the  palace  of  Alcinous  in  Phaeacia. 
This  too  has  a  glitter  as  of  the  sun  or  moon,  and  understandably, 
since  the  walls  are  of  bronze,  the  doors  of  gold,  the  door-posts  and 
lintels  of  silver,  while  dogs  of  gold  and  silver  guard  the  entries.3 
Into  this  imaginary  palace  Homer  has  perhaps  put  remote  legends 
and  memories  of  Minoan  or  Mycenean  times  when  gold  was 
plentiful  and  kings  lived  in  great  palaces  like  those  of  Cnossus  and 

1  Trs.  Arthur  Waley,  Botteghe  Oscure,  vii  (1951),  pp.  218-19. 
2  Od.  iv,  45-6.  J  Ibid,  vii,  84-94. 

147 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Mycenae.  Though  none  of  his  audience  would  have  seen  such  a 
palace,  except  in  ruins,  it  would  be  accepted  as  right  and  proper 
for  Alcinous,  who  reigns  in  a  fabulous  island  far  from  other  men 
and  enjoys  peculiar  wealth  and  glory. 

Unlike  palaces,  gardens  play  little  part  in  heroic  poetry,  partly 
perhaps  because  the  heroic  world  hardly  knows  what  they  are, 
partly  because  the  taste  for  them  is  rather  too  luxurious  for  the 
heroic  temper.  Their  real  home  is  in  a  world  of  courtship  and 
courtesy  and  ease.  It  is  true  that  Roland  allows  something  of  the 
kind  to  the  Saracens,  but  it  denies  them  to  Charlemagne  in  his 
palace  at  Aix,  while  the  stark  world  of  Beowulf  and  the  Elder  Edda 
is  remarkable  more  for  rude  rocks  and  rough  seas  than  for  bowers 
and  fountains.  None  the  less  gardens  sometimes  appear  and  help 
to  complete  the  picture  of  the  splendour  in  which  a  great  man  lives. 
They  are  not,  as  in  romance,  settings  for  love  and  sentiment,  but 
an  adjunct  of  power  and  wealth.  1  Homer  once  gives  his  powers  to 
such  a  domain,  when  he  describes  at  considerable  length  the 
garden  and  orchard  of  Alcinous.  Outside  the  palace  is  the  great 
orchard,  surrounded  by  a  wall,  where  fruit-trees,  pear,  pome- 
granate, apple,  fig,  and  olive,  flourish  all  the  year  round,  so  that 
there  is  never  any  lack  of  either  fruit  or  blossom.  Here  some 
grapes  are  dried  and  trodden,  while  others  are  still  ripening  on  the 
trees.  Here  too  are  flower-beds,  and  two  springs,  one  of  which 
flows  through  the  garden,  and  the  other  under  the  threshold  of  the 
court  to  the  house,  where  men  draw  water  from  it.1  This  miracu- 
lous garden  is  both  beautiful  and  functional,  and  it  is  characteristic 
of  Alcinous  that  his  douceur  de  vivre  should  be  founded  on  so 
unusual  and  so  admirable  a  system  of  supply.  Homer  describes 
it  so  factually  and  with  so  obvious  a  belief  in  its  reality  that  we  take 
his  word  for  it  and  enjoy  it  as  something  entirely  possible  in  the 
magical  world  of  Phaeacia. 

A  similar  theme  is  used  with  quite  a  different  intention  in  a 
modern  Greek  poem  on  Digenis  Akritas.  In  The  Dying  Digenis 
the  poet  begins  by  showing  the  hero  in  all  his  power  and  splendour, 
the  great  man  who  builds  a  castle  and  a  garden  worthy  of  his  noble 
name  and  superior  nature  : 

Akritas  built  a  citadel,  Akritas  built  a  garden, 
Upon  a  plain,  a  grassy  place,  a  site  for  them  well  suited. 
All  the  plants  growing  in  the  world  he  brought  to  it  and  planted  ; 
All  the  vines  growing  in  the  world  he  brought  to  it  and  planted  ; 
All  waters  flowing  in  the  world  he  brought  and  made  them  channels, 
All  the  birds  singing  in  the  world  he  brought  and  made  nests  for  them. 
Unceasingly  they  sang,  and  sang  :  "  May  Akritas  live  for  ever  !  "  2 
1   Od.  vii,  112-32.  2  Legrand,  p.  195. 

148 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

This  is  how  a  hero  likes  to  display  his  greatness.  He  assumes  that 
he  has  the  power  and  the  right  to  express  himself  on  this  royal 
scale  and  to  sack  the  world  for  delights  to  please  his  eye  and  ear. 
So  far  he  resembles  Alcinous,  but  the  more  modern  Greek  poet  is 
not  like  Homer.  He  will  not  leave  it  at  that.  Digenis'  pride,  it 
seems,  is  not  justified  after  all,  and  the  great  display  is  only  a 
preliminary  to  his  death.  One  Sunday  morning  the  birds  change 
their  tune  and  sing  "  Akritas  will  die  ".  In  defiance  of  this  he 
goes  out  to  shoot  them  and  to  kill  what  animals  he  can.  He  finds 
none  and  meets  instead  Charon,  with  whom  he  struggles  and  is 
defeated.  He  accepts  his  defeat  and  prepares  for  death  : 

"  Come  here,  my  lady  beautiful,  and  make  my  death-bed  ready  ; 
Put  flowers  on  for  coverlet,  with  muse  perfume  the  pillows  ; 
Then  go,  my  lady  beautiful,  to  hear  what  say  the  neighbours." 

The  great  hero  must  die  like  any  other  man,  and  in  the  end  his 
proud  magnificence  is  no  more  than  the  signal  for  his  final  defeat. 
Closer  even  than  his  dwelling  to  a  hero  are  his  weapons.  Since 
through  them  he  wins  the  renown  which  he  seeks,  they  must  be 
worthy  of  him.  So  heroic  poetry  loves  to  dwell  on  some  weapon 
or  piece  of  armour  with  meticulous,  professional  care.  That  is 
why  the  forging  of  weapons  is  a  grave  affair.  Sometimes  the  means 
used  are  natural  enough,  as  when  Gilgamish  and  Enkidu  prepare 
for  their  expedition  against  the  ogre  Humbaba,  and  give  orders 
which  are  carried  out : 

The  workmen  prepared  the  mould,  and  cast  monstrous  axes  ; 

They  cast  celts,  each  of  three  talents'  weight ; 

They  cast  monstrous  knives,  with  hilts  each  of  two  talents'  weight, 

And  blades,  of  thirty  manas  each,  to  fit  them  ; 

The  gold  inlay  of  each  sword  was  thirty  manas. 

Gilgamish  and  Enkidu  were  laden  each  with  ten  talents.1 

That  is  professional  and  factual.  [The  heroes  carry  weapons  of 
prodigious  weight,  which  only  shows  how  splendid  they  are.  But 
not  all  weapons  are  so  innocent  as  these.  Often  enough  magic  or 
poison  is  used  to  make  them  more  deadly.  So  the  sword,  Hrunting, 
with  which  Beowulf  hopes  to  kill  Grendel's  Dam,  has  had  a 
special  treatment  as  well  as  considerable  use  : 

Iron  was  its  edge,      all  etched  with  poison, 

With  battle-blood  hardened,      nor  blenched  it  at  fight 

In  hero's  hand      who  held  it  ever.2       I 

So  too  the  sword  which  the  Valkyrie  gives  to  Helgi  Hundingsbane 
is  engraved  with  snakes  to  indicate  its  power  to  destroy,  and  has 

1  Gilgamish,  in,  iii,  30-35.  *  Beowulf,  1459-61. 

149 


HEROIC  POETRY 

miraculous  powers  which  may  he  expected  to  bring  victory  to  its 
possessor  : 

In  the  hilt  is  fame,      in  the  haft  is  courage, 
In  the  point  is  fear,      for  its  owner's  foes  ; 
On  the  blade  there  lies      a  blood-flecked  snake, 
And  a  serpent's  tail      round  the  flat  is  twisted.1 

Heroic  weapons  are  not  forged  without  much  time  and  trouble. 
The  resources  of  earth  are  ransacked  to  give  them  a  final  strength, 
and  magical  powers  are  called  in  to  help.  So  the  forging  of 
Manas'  sword  is  a  lengthy  and  exacting  business  : 

They  cut  down  a  multitude  of  woods 

To  smelt  the  sword  in  the  furnace  ! 

They  slaughtered  a  multitude  of  oxen 

And  brought  their  skins  for  the  sword, 

To  smelt  a  terrible  sword  ! 

Often  the  smith  prayed, 

Karataz  pleaded  with  passion, 

Saying  "  Help  me,  God  !  " 

For  the  tempering  of  that  sword. 

So  hot  was  the  steel, 

They  emptied  cold  streams. 

Many  a  stream  was  dried  up  ! 

They  were  unable  to  finish  it, 

They  dared  not,  they  were  exhausted, 

The  forty  skilled  masters 

From  the  distant  land  of  Egypt. 

The  most  renowned  smith 

In  winter  and  summer  hammered 

Manas'  sword  for  fights  to  come.  .  .  . 

In  hideous  days  of  strain  and  slaughter 

They  beat  out  for  him  that  sword  ; 

In  mirages  of  the  blue  sky 

A  fortune-teller  tempered  the  sword, 

Spirits  put  charms  upon  the  sword, 

In  snake's  poison  was  dipped  the  sword.2 

The  hero,  who  is  unlike  other  men,  must  have  a  sword  unlike 
other  swords,  and  his  strength  and  skill,  which  seem  to  be  almost 
supernatural,  must  be  exercised  on  a  weapon  fashioned  by  more 
than  human  art.  Such  swords  help  to  complete  their  masters' 
personalities  and  have  an  interest  of  their  own  for  audiences  who 
know  the  good  points  of  a  weapon  and  what  it  means  to  its 
possessor. 

In  such  a  world  the  smith  who  makes  weapons  has  a  peculiar 
renown  and  is  often  thought  to  be  a  god  or  a  demi-god.    In  Ger- 
manic legend  the  great  smith  is  Volund,  or,  as  the  English  called 
1  Helgakvitha  Hjorvarthssonar,  9.  2  Manas,  p.  326  ;  cf.  Radlov,  v,  p.  43. 

150 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

him,  Weyland  Smith.  Though  his  life  is  regarded  by  the  poet  of 
Deor  as  a  classic  case  of  suffering,  he  surpasses  all  other  smiths  in 
skill.  No  doubt  that  is  why  he  is  put  in  chains  and  made  to  work 
by  Nithuth,  from  whom  in  due  time  he  exacts  a  hideous  revenge. 
It  is  he  who  makes  Beowulf's  corslet j1  and  Waldhere's  sword,2 
and  is  known  to  the  author  of  Waltharius  for  his  Wielandia 
fabrica.3  In  the  Norse  Lay  of  Volund  he  speaks  with  pride  of  his 
own  handicraft : 

"  At  Nithuth 's  girdle      gleams  the  sword 
That  I  sharpened  keen      with  cunningest  craft, 
And  hardened  the  steel      with  highest  skill  ; 
The  bright  blade  far      forever  is  borne, 
Nor  back  shall  I  see  it      borne  to  the  smithy."  4 

Volund  is  so  fine  a  smith  that  he  is  thought  to  be  a  magician,  and 
his  final  revenge  on  Nithuth  shows  his  talents.  In  him  perhaps 
the  Norse  imagination  has  glorified  the  Finnish  magicians  known 
to  legend,  since  he  is  connected  with  Finland  and  his  place  in 
the  Norse  world  is  somewhat  ambiguous.  He  stands  outside  the 
common  rut  as  a  great  smith  should.  From  a  magician  to  a  god 
is  but  a  small  step,  and  it  is  natural  that  poets  should  make  some 
of  the  greatest  smiths  divine.  The  Ossete  Kurdalagon  lives  in  the 
sky  but  helps  men  with  superhuman  feats  on  his  forge.  The  most 
famous  divine  smith  is  Hephaestus,  and  it  is  right  that,  when 
Achilles'  armour  has  been  stripped  from  Patroclus'  body  by 
Hector,  new  armour  should  be  made  for  Achilles  by  Hephaestus. 
Thetis  comes  to  him  and  asks  him  to  make  the  armour,  and  he 
agrees  in  a  few  courteous  words.  Then,  like  a  real  smith,  he  sets 
to  work,  and  Homer  describes  the  scene  with  a  firm,  realistic  eye. 
Of  course  this  forge  is  more  powerful  than  any  forge  used  by  men, 
but  it  works  on  the  same  principles  and  shows  that  its  smith  is  a 
supreme  master  of  his  craft.  He  sets  twenty  bellows  in  action, 
and  throws  bronze,  tin,  silver,  and  gold  into  the  fire.  Then  he 
sets  his  anvil  on  its  block,  and  takes  in  one  hand  his  hammer  and 
in  the  other  his  bellows.5  Hephaestus  works  in  ideal  conditions 
beyond  human  reach.  Even  his  bellows  obey  his  orders  as  if  they 
were  his  servants.  But  his  manner  of  work  is  that  of  all  smiths, 
and  the  weapons  which  he  makes  are  to  be  used  in  human  warfare. 
In  contrast  to  the  way  in  which  Achilles  has  his  armour  made 
for  him  by  a  divine  smith,  we  may  set  another  hero  who  has  to  seek 
out  a  smith  for  himself  and  then  prove  his  worth  in  choosing  from 
the  weapons  which  are  offered  to  him.  When  the  Esthonian 

1  Beowulf,  455.  2  Waldhere,  2.  3   Waltharius,  964. 

4   Volundarkvitha,  19.  5  //.  xviii,  468-77. 

151  L 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Kalevide  visits  a  Finnish  smith,  whom  he  finds  with  some  trouble, 
he  is  first  presented  with  an  armful  of  swords,  from  which  he  picks 
the  longest.  He  bends  it  into  a  hoop,  but  it  straightens  itself  out. 
He  then  strikes  it  on  a  massive  rock,  and  the  blade  is  shivered  to 
pieces.  He  asks  scornfully  : 

"  Who  has  mixed  up  children's  playthings 
With  arms  meant  for  grown-up  warriors  ?  " 

More  swords  are  brought  in,  and  the  Kalevide  chooses  one  which 
he  brings  down  on  the  anvil.  The  sword  cuts  deep  into  it,  but  the 
sharp  edge  is  blunted.  The  smith  then  says  that  he  has  one  sword 
worthy  of  the  hero's  strength  if  he  is  rich  enough  to  buy  it,  and 
states  a  fabulous  price,  including  horses,  milch  kine,  oxen,  calves, 
wheat,  barley,  rye,  dollars,  bracelets,  gold  coins,  silver  brooches, 
the  third  of  a  kingdom,  and  the  dowries  of  three  maidens.  Then 
a  sword  is  fetched  from  a  cupboard.  The  smith  and  his  sons  have 
worked  at  it  for  seven  years  and  made  it  from  seven  kinds  of  iron 
with  seven  charms  and  tempered  it  in  seven  different  waters  from 
those  of  the  sea  and  Lake  Peipus  to  rain-water.  The  Kalevide 
receives  it  with  reverence,  whirls  it  like  a  fiery  wheel,  till  it  whistles 
through  the  air  like  a  tempest  that  breaks  oaks  and  unroofs  houses. 
Then  he  brings  down  the  edge  like  a  flash  of  lightning  on  the  anvil 
and  cleaves  it  to  the  ground  without  in  any  way  hurting  the  sword. 
The  Kalevide  thanks  the  smith  and  promises  to  pay  his  price.1 
Such  a  sword  has  more  than  a  touch  of  magic  in  it,  and  it  is  sig- 
nificant that  this  smith  also  is  a  Finn.  But  the  Kalevide  gets  the 
sword  because  of  his  heroic  strength  and  superb  swordsmanship. 
A  lesser  man  would  never  had  been  able  to  test  weapons  as  he  does. 
The  weapons  made  in  these  unusual  conditions  develop  their 
own  personalities  and  often  have  their  own  names.  If  the  Greeks 
do  not  give  names  to  their  weapons,  the  Germanic  peoples,  the 
French,  and  the  Tatars  do.  Sigurth's  sword  is  called  Gram.  It 
was  made  for  him  by  Regin  and  was  said  to  be  so  sharp  that  when 
he  thrust  it  into  the  Rhine  and  let  a  strand  of  wool  drift  against  it 
with  the  stream,  it  cleft  the  strand  as  if  it  were  water.  With  this 
sword  Sigurth  cleaves  Regin 's  anvil  and  kills  the  dragon  Fafnir. 
Waldhere's  sword,  Mimming,  is  one  of  Weyland's  masterpieces, 
and  that  is  why  in  the  fight  with  Gutthere  Hildegyth  encourages 
Waldhere  with  a  reminder  that  he  has  an  incomparable  weapon  : 

"  Indeed  Weyland's      work  not  faileth 
Any  among  men      who  the  Mimming  can, 
The  hoary  one  handle.      Oft  in  the  host  hath  fallen 
Blood-sweating  and  sword -wounded      swain  after  other."  2 
1  Kirby,  i,  p.  42  ff.  2   Waldhere,  2-5. 

152 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

\nother  famous  sword  is  Hrunting,  which  Unferth  lends  to 
Beowulf  for  his  attack  on  Grendel's  Dam  : 

never  in  battle  had  it  failed 
Any  man      whose  arm  had  clasped  it, 
Who  the  way  of  terror      dared  to  tread, 
The  field  of  foemen  ;      'twas  not  the  first  time 
That  an  excellent  work      it  was  to  accomplish.1 

Actually  Hrunting  fails  Beowulf  in  his  encounter  with  the  Dam, 
but  perhaps  that  is  not  its  fault,  since  the  conditions  of  fight  are 
highly  unusual  and  the  foe  is  no  human  opponent.  ]  In  Roland 
is  a  sword  no  less  renowned  than  these.  Roland's  Durendal 
is  also  reputed  to  be  the  work  of  Weland  and  is  the  gift  of 
Charlemagne.  It  has  accompanied  Roland  on  his  great  exploits 
and,  before  he  dies,  he  addresses  it  with  affectionate  remembrance 
of  what  it  has  done  and  of  all  the  places  in  which  they  have  tasted 
victory  together.2 

Something  of  the  same  kind  may  be  seen  among  some  Asiatic 
peoples.  The  Kalmuck  poet  gives  the  measurements  and  materials 
of  Dzhangar's  great  spear  : 

The  guardian  of  his  life,  his  spear, 

With  its  shaft  of  sandalwood, 

Is  made  of  six  thousand  stocks  of  that  wood. 

Its  striking  point  is  made 

From  three  hundred  and  fifty  clamped  roes'  horns, 

But  on  it  is  woven  a  cover 

Wound  of  six  thousand  sheep  tendons. 

The  point  of  the  spear  is  of  diamond. 

It  has  sixteen  blades, 

Crushing  with  terror  every  living  thing.3 

Everything  in  the  heroic  world  of  the  Kalmucks  is  on  a  large  scale, 
and  this  spear  conforms  to  accepted  standards,  but  despite  its  size 
it  is  built  on  a  real  model  and  shows  that  the  poet  knows  about 
weapons.  With  this  spear  we  may  compare  the  gun  of  the  Kara- 
Kirghiz  Manas.  It  may  sound  more  modern,  and  perhaps  it  is, 
but  to  the  poet  it  is  hardly  less  wonderful.  It  deals  death  in  a 
way  worthy  of  its  master,  and  his  affection  for  it  is  shown  by  its 
having  a  name  "  Ak-kelte  "  : 

His  right  eye  shoots  flames  — 
Bullets  pour  out  from  Ak-kelte, 
A  hot  coal  flies  from  his  left  eye  — 
Bullets  pour  out  from  Ak-kelte  ! 

1  Beowulf,  1460-64.  2  Roland,  2316-37. 

3  Dzhangariada,  p.  98. 

153 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Indifferent  is  Ak-kelte, 

Be  the  enemy  far  or  near, 

It  throws  the  enemy  in  the  dust ! 

A  heart  of  steel  has  Ak-kelte  ! 

Its  muzzle  brings  death. 

Thicker  than  fog  smoke  comes  from  it. 

Its  aim  is  a  marvel,  its  bullets  death  !  l 

The  hero's  weapon  is  both  an  instrument  and  an  emblem  of  his 
terrible  power.  It  rounds  off  his  nature  and  helps  him  to  fulfil 
his  potentialities. 

j^Jli  a  hero  pursues  his  projects  on  the  sea,  he  needs  a  ship,  and 
though  ships  are  not  very  common  in  heroic  poetry,  they  are  to  be 
found  in  it  and  provide  interesting  cases  of  realistic  description. 
Of  course  a  hero  knows  both  how  to  make  a  ship  and  how  to  sail 
it :  that  is  part  of  his  general  competence  and  mastery  of  affairs^ 
He  is  both  craftsman  and  mariner  and  does  by  his  own  knowledge 
and  wits  what  sorcerers  like  Vainamoinen  do  by  spells.  If  need 
arises,  he  can  build  a  boat  to  compete  with  the  best.  He  may  even 
have  to  build  something  out  of  the  ordinary,  and  then  he  has  a 
chance  to  display  his  accomplishment.  This  is  true  of  Odysseus. 
On  the  remote  island  of  Ogygia,  whose  only  other  inhabitant  is  a 
goddess,  he  hears  that  he  may  at  last  go  home,  and  for  this  he  has 
to  build  himself  some  kind  of  craft.  There  is  no  one  to  help  him, 
and  all  that  he  has  is  an  abundance  of  well-seasoned  wood  which 
will  float  easily.  Calypso  vaguely  tells  him  to  build  a  raft,  and  we 
might  expect  that  he  would  make  something  very  simple  and 
primitive,  but  in  fact  Odysseus  is  too  good  a  sailor  and  too  cunning 
a  workman  to  be  content  with  that.  What  he  builds  is  in  fact  a 
seaworthy  boat  which  can  be  controlled  by  one  man.  He  first 
cuts  twenty  planks  and  shapes  and  smoothes  them.  Then  he  sets 
to  work  as  boat-builders  still  do  in  Greece.  With  gimlet  and 
hammer  he  fastens  together  a  hull,  to  which  he  adds  decks  fore 
and  aft  in  the  usual  Homeric  manner.  Then  he  fits  it  with  ribs 
and  planks,  sets  in  it  a  mast  with  a  yard-arm,  and  adds  a  rudder.2 
So  far  the  craft  is  the  usual  Homeric  ship,  though  doubtless  built 
on  a  small  scale,  since  it  has  only  to  take  a  crew  of  one.  On  the 
whole  this  is  the  kind  of  ship  depicted  on  Geometric  vases  of  the 
eighth  century  B.C.,  though  there  is  no  evidence  that  it  has  any- 
thing like  the  ram  with  which,  for  purposes  of  war,  they  were 
fitted.  Nor  is  it  clear  that  Odysseus'  mast  resembles  other 
Homeric  masts  in  being  fitted  with  a  box  which  enables  it  to  be 
taken  down  when  sails  are  useless  and  oars  must  be  taken  up 

1  Manas,  p.  327.  2  Od.  v,  246-57. 

154 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

instead.  Odysseus  intends  to  sail  and  has  no  oars.  In  another 
point  Odysseus  goes  his  own  way.  He  puts  a  fence  round  the 
boat  to  prevent  it  being  swamped,  and  this  device  is  still  used 
in  Greece.  Leake  saw  a  gunwale  enveloped  with  withies  "  to 
protect  it  from  the  waves  or  from  the  danger  of  a  sudden  heel  ".* 
Odysseus  knows  his  job  and  does  it  skilfully.  It  is  not  his  fault  if 
he  is  wrecked  ;  that  is  the  doing  of  Poseidon,  god  of  the  sea. 

A  second  early  craft  is  the  remarkable  ark  described  mGilgamish, 
which  Uta-Napishtim  builds  at  the  command  of  the  gods.  Though 
this  Babylonian  Noah  is  not  a  hero  in  the  same  sense  as  Gilgamish, 
he  is  an  important  person  who  takes  part  in  great  events.  The 
gods  warn  him  that  a  deluge  is  coming  and  give  him  orders  : 

"  Pull  down  a  dwelling  and  fashion  a  vessel ; 

Abandon  possessions  and  seek  life  ; 

Disregard  thy  hoard  and  save  life. 

Embark  every  creature  on  thy  vessel. 

The  vessel  which  thou  art  to  fashion, 

Let  its  measure  be  apt,  and  its  length  to  match, 

Launch  it  on  the  deep."  2 

Uta-Napishtim  did  what  he  was  told,  and  later,  with  a  craftsman's 
pride,  tells  Gilgamish  how  he  built  the  vessel : 

"  On  the  fifth  day  I  laid  out  the  shape  ; 

Her  sides  were  a  hundred  and  twenty  cubits  high, 

And  her  deck  a  hundred  and  twenty  cubits  long. 

I  laid  down  the  shape  of  her  fore-part  and  fashioned  it. 

Six  times  I  cross-pinned  her, 

Sevenfold  I  divided  her  deck, 

Ninefold  I  divided  her  inwards. 

I  hammered  the  caulking  within  her, 

I  found  a  measuring  pole. 

All  that  was  needful  I  added, 

I  smeared  the  hull  with  six  shar  of  bitumen 

And  I  smeared  the  inside  with  three  shar  of  pitch."  3 

The  result  is  that  the  ark  survives  the  deluge,  and  Uta-Napishtim 
and  his  family  are  the  only  human  beings  who  do  not  perish.  It  is 
clear  that  the  poet  of  Gilgamish  takes  as  professional  an  interest 
as  Homer  in  ship-building.  Both  poets  see  that  on  occasions  like 
these  the  great  man  must  be  able  to  beat  craftsmen  at  their  own 
craft. 

LThe  hero  both  makes  his  boat  and  sails  it.     The  poet  of 
Beowulf  appreciates  the  point  and  makes  his  hero  first  build  his 

1  Travels  in  the  Morea,  i,  p.  499,  quoted  by  H.  Michell  in  Classical  Review, 
Ixii  (1938),  p.  44. 

2  Gilgamish,  xi,  i,  24-30.  3  Ibid.  56-66. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

ship  and  then  put  it  to  sea.  Beowulf  sets  about  it  methodically. 
He  chooses  his  companions  and  his  expert  pilot,  and  between  them 
the  ship  is  built  and  launched  : 

He  had,  good  man,      from  the  Geatish  people 

Champions  chosen,      of  those  that  keenest 

Might  be  found  :      with  fourteen  else 

The  sound -wood  he  sought ;      a  sailor  shewed  them, 

A  lake-crafty  man,      the  land-marks. 

On  time  went ;      on  the  waves  was  their  ship, 

A  boat  under  bergs.      The  boys  all  ready 

Stepped  on  the  stem  ;      the  stream  was  washing 

The  sound  on  the  sand  ;      those  seamen  bare 

Into  the  breast  of  the  bark      bright  adornments, 

Wondrous  war-armour  ;      well  out  they  shoved  her, 

(Wights  willing  to  journey)      with  wooden  beams  bounden. 

Went  then  over  the  waves,      as  the  wind  drave  her, 

The  foamy  necked  floater,      to  a  fowl  best  likened.1 

At  first  sight  perhaps  the  mannerisms  of  Anglo-Saxon  poetry  may 
conceal  the  essential  realism  and  truthfulness  of  this  description, 
but  it  is  soon  clear  that  Beowulf  knows  his  job  and  attacks  it  with 
confidence  and  competence^  The  same  of  course  is  true  of  Odys- 
seus. When  he  leaves  Calypso's  island  on  his  new  craft,  he  sets 
out  on  unknown  seas  and  has  to  find  his  own  course  without  charts 
or  information  of  any  kind.  He  proceeds  in  a  quiet,  purposeful 
way.  He  spreads  his  sails  and  catches  the  wind,  which  carries  him 
along,  while  he  sits  and  steers.  He  guides  himself  mainly  by  the 
stars,  watching  the  Pleiades  and  Bootes  and  being  careful  to  observe 
Calypso's  instruction  to  keep  the  Bear  on  his  left.  So  for  seven 
days  and  nights  he  sails.2  Homer  presents  the  action  simply,  but 
it  is  clear  that  Odysseus'  seamanship  has  no  flaws.  A  third  member 
in  the  trio  of  heroes  who  both  build  boats  and  manage  them  is 
Gilgamish.  When  he  comes  to  the  Waters  of  Death,  he  meets 
Ur-Shanabi,  the  boatman  of  Uta-Napishtim,  who  tells  him  to 
build  a  boat,  and  Gilgamish  sets  about  at  once  to  do  so  : 

He  took  the  axe  in  his  hand, 

And  drew  the  glaive  from  his  belt, 

Went  to  the  forest  and  fashioned  poles  of  five  gar, 

He  made  knops  of  bitumen  and  added  sockets.  .  .  . 

Gilgamish  and  Ur-Shanabi  fared  forth  in  the  vessel, 

They  launched  the  boat  on  the  waves, 

And  themselves  embarked  on  her, 3 

As  they  draw  near  to  the  other  side,  the  navigation  becomes 
difficult,  and  the  poet  realistically  describes  how  Ur-Shanabi  makes 
Gilgamish  take  soundings  with  his  pole  until  they  make  a  safe 

1  Beowulf,  205-18.  2  Od.  v,  269-78.  3  Gilgamish,  x,  iii,  44-8. 

156 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

landing.  Heroes  are  good  sailors  because  it  is  part  of  their  job  to 
know  how  to  build  and  manage  boats,  and  when  the  poets  tell  of 
this,  they  make  the  details  convincing,  so  that  those  in  the  audience 
who  know  the  sea  will  be  suitably  interested. 

More  important  than  a  hero's  boat,  and  perhaps  more  import- 
ant even  than  his  armour,  is  his  horse.  No  animal  invites  so 
technical  or  so  discriminating  a  knowledge  or  excites  stronger 
affection  and  admiration.  Heroic  poets  know  about  horses  and 
study  them  with  professional  appreciation.  In  heroic  societies 
the  horse  has  more  than  one  function.  It  is  in  the  first  place  an 
article  of  wealth.  A  man  is  known  by  the  quantity  and  quality  of 
his  horses  and  is  naturally  proud  of  them.  If  raiding  is  still  an 
honourable  pursuit,  horses  are  among  the  first  objects  of  loot.  In 
the  second  place,  the  horse  is  invaluable  in  war  —  the  hero's  most 
trusted  friend,  which  may  often  save  him  in  dangerous  situations 
and  provide  inestimable  service  in  overcoming  his  enemies.  When 
war  gives  place  to  games  or  other  tests  of  prowess,  horse- racing  is 
one  of  the  most  favoured  ways  for  heroes  to  compete  against  each 
other.  In  the  third  place,  a  knowledge  of  horses  is  one  of  the 
most  prized  branches  of  knowledge.  The  man  who  really  knows 
about  them  is  respected  as  few  other  men  are,  and,  conversely, 
ignorance  of  them  invites  contempt.  These  elements  are  constant 
in  heroic,poetry,  since  they  represent  a  natural  attitude,  and,  though 
there  are  interesting  variations  on  them,  they  exist  in  most 
countries  and  follow  similar  lines. 

By  universal  consent  one  of  the  most  important  things  about  a 
horse  is  its  pedigree,  and,  just  as  heroes  are  superior  to  other  men 
through  their  lineage,  so  their  horses  are  superior  to  other  horses 
by  their  birth  and  resemble  their  masters  in  a  divine  origin  or  at 
least  in  having  been  trained  by  gods,  like  the  horses  of  Eumelus  at 
Troy,  which  are  second  only  to  those  of  Achilles,  swift  as  birds  and 
alike  in  their  coats,  age,  and  height,  and  worthy  of  the  nurture 
which  Apollo  gave  them  in  Perea.1  Sigurth's  horse,  Grani,  was 
given  to  him  when  he  was  a  boy  by  Othin  and  was  sprung  from 
Othin's  own  horse,  Sleipnir.2  Other  horses  have  origins  even  more 
remarkable,  like  the  horse  of  Manas,  which  is  called  Ak-kula  and 
reveals  its  unusual  birth  in  its  behaviour : 

If  night  without  moon  is  on  the  earth, 
If  earth  is  lost  in  mist  and  gloom, 
The  horse's  ears  shine  upon  it, 
As  if  lights  were  kindled  in  them  ! 
A  whirlwind  made  its  mother  pregnant.3 

1  //.  ii,  763-7.  2   V6lsungasaga,  13.  3  Manas,  p.  326. 

157 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Ak-kula  is  of  the  same  breed  as  Achilles'  horses,  Xanthus  and 
Balios,  "  Brown  "  and  "  Dapple  ",  who  fly  with  the  winds  and  are 
the  children  of  the  Harpy  Podarge  —  "the  Swift- footed  "  — 
born  by  her  to  the  West  Wind  when  she  fed  in  a  meadow  by  the 
streams  of  Ocean.1  Since  horses  travel  as  fast  as  the  wind,  it  is 
right  to  assume  that  they  are  sometimes  its  children.  The  delight- 
ful Armenian  horse,  Dzhalali,  has  an  even  more  mysterious  origin. 
When  Sanasar  dives  into  the  sea  and  finds  a  splendid  dwelling  : 

He  sees  ;  a  horse  is  tethered, 

A  horse  with  a  saddle  of  mother-of-pearl.2 

The  Mother  of  God  appears  to  him  and  tells  him  that  the  horse  is 
his.  In  such  mysteries  are  the  origins  of  great  horses  hidden. 

The  poetry  of  horses  must  be  both  convincing  and  charming, 
if  it  is  to  do  justice  to  them  and  their  owners  and  show  what  great 
men  these  are.  But  within  these  limits  it  can  vary  from  expert 
observation  to  rapturous  fancy.  Sometimes  it  is  enough  to 
describe  a  real  horse  as  it  appears  to  those  who  know  about  horses. 
So  a  Jugoslav  poet  describes  the  horse  of  the  Turk,  Bircanin 
llija,  with  an  eye  to  its  speed  and  beauty  : 

'Twas  an  Arab  steed  of  fiery  temper, 

White  as  is  the  snow  upon  the  mountains  ; 

Had  it  no  caparison  or  harness 

From  the  snow  it  ne'er  could  be  distinguished  ; 

If  it  did  not  stamp  its  feet,  or  whinny 

In  its  equine  converse  with  the  dapple, 

Didst  thou  not  perceive  the  glaring  eyeball 

That  was  from  its  noble  head  protruding  — 

With  a  single  blow  it  might  be  severed 

And  the  sabre  would  not  touch  the  forehead  !  — 

Easily  'twould  pass  thee  by  unnoticed. 3 

If  we  wish  to  see  a  real  battle-horse  in  the  grand  manner,  it  is  the 
charger  which  Archbishop  Turpin  took  from  an  enemy  slain  in 
Denmark  and  rides  into  battle  against  the  Saracens.  The  poet 
tells  of  it  with  care  for  its  bone  and  breeding  : 

That  charger  is  swift,  and  of  noble  race  ; 

Fine  are  his  hoofs,  his  legs  are  smooth  and  straight, 

Short  are  his  thighs,  broad  crupper  he  displays, 

Long  are  his  ribs,  aloft  his  spine  is  raised, 

White  is  his  tail,  and  yellow  is  his  mane, 

Little  his  ears,  and  tawny  all  his  face  ; 

No  beast  is  there  can  match  him  in  the  race.* 

1  //.  xvi,  149-51.  2  David  Sasunskii,  p.  43. 

3  Morison,  p.  25.  4  Roland,  1651-8. 

158 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

This  is  the  right  horse  for  a  warrior  in  full  armour.  It  lives  up  to 
its  form  and  is  the  Archbishop's  valiant  ally  in  his  last  desperate 
battle. 

Horses  are  not  always  portrayed  realistically  like  this.  Oriental 
poets  sometimes  glorify  the  points  of  a  horse  with  metaphor  and 
hyperbole.  So  The  Stealing  of  the  Mare,  which  is  concerned  with 
a  creature  of  surpassing  beauty  and  rarity,  gives  proper  emphasis 
to  it : 

Spare  is  her  head  and  lean,  her  ears  set  close  together ; 
Her  forelock  is  a  net,  her  forehead  a  lamp  lighted, 
Illumining  the  tribe,  her  neck  curved  like  a  palm  branch, 
Her  wither  clean  and  sharp.     Upon  her  chest  and  throttle 
An  amulet  hangs  of  gold.     Her  forelegs  are  twin  lances, 
Her  hoofs  fly  forward  faster  ever  than  flies  the  whirlwind. 
Her  tail  bone  held  aloft,  yet  the  hairs  sweep  the  gravel ; 
Her  height  twice  eight,  sixteen,  taller  than  all  the  horses.1 

There  is  poetic  licence  in  this,  but  it  hardly  extends  beyond  some 
apt  images,  and  in  the  main  the  poet  knows  his  subject  and  bases 
himself  on  fact.  From  this  kind  of  eulogy  it  is  but  a  small  step  to 
something  that  sounds  more  unusual.  The  Kalmuck  poet,  who 
glorifies  Dzhangar,  glorifies  his  horse  with  him  and  takes  us  into 
what  looks  like  a  world  of  wonder.  This  is  a  Mongolian  horse, 
detailed  with  an  abundance  of  Asiatic  rhetoric  : 

Its  neck,  like  a  swan's,  is  nine  spans  long, 

Its  blowing  mane  is  not  to  be  caught  .  .  . 

Its  ears  are  like  the  lips  of  a  water-lily, 

Its  eyes  are  bright  as  a  hawk's, 

Its  teeth  are  white  as  clenched  claws, 

Its  tusks  are  like  piercing  gimlets  ; 

Its  croup  is  like  that  of  a  black  bear, 

Its  curly  brown-silver  tail  is  eighty-one  spans  long, 

Its  step  is  light,  its  four  black  hoofs  are  like  swords, 

It  will  go  without  rest,  it  will  not  pause, 

It  will  go  through  the  world  and  not  be  overtaken.2 

There  is  exaggeration  in  this,  but  not  so  much  as  there  might  seem 
at  first  sight.  The  points  made  are  real  enough,  but  they  are  made 
in  the  language  of  imaginative  eulogy  and  suit  the  superhuman  order 
to  which  Dzhangar  and  everything  that  concerns  him  belong. 

Since  his  horse  means  so  much  to  him,  a  hero  forms  a  special 
intimacy  with  it.  The  Homeric  heroes  take  their  horses  into  their 
confidence  and  appeal  to  them  for  generous  help  and  utmost  effort. 
So  Hector  reminds  his  horses,  Chestnut,  Brightfoot,  and  Gleamer, 
what  good  treatment  they  have  received  from  himself  and  Andro- 

1   Blunt,  ii,  p.  147.  2  Dzhangariada,  p.  98. 

'59 


HEROIC  POETRY 

mache,  how  they  have  had  abundance  of  barley  and  even  of  wine 
given  to  them,  and  asks  them  now  to  repay  this  kindness.1  In  his 
household,  horses  receive  special  attention  and  are  treated  almost 
as  members  of  the  family.  He  is  on  intimate  terms  with  them  and 
speaks  to  them  as  old  retainers.  In  the  same  way,  but  with  no 
appeal  to  benefits  received,  Achilles  calls  to  his  horses  to  go  out 
with  him  and  rescue  the  body  of  Patroclus,2  and  in  the  horse-race 
at  the  funeral -games  Antilochus  urges  his  horses  to  defeat  those  of 
Menelaus  and  threatens  them  that,  if  they  lose,  they  will  not  only 
get  no  food  from  Nestor  but  may  even  be  killed.3  In  this  there  is 
an  element  of  playful  humour,  suitable  to  the  spirit  in  which  the 
games  are  conducted,  but  it  is  none  the  less  intimate.  The 
Homeric  heroes  treat  their  horses  as  tried  companions  and  expect 
the  most  from  them. 

Something  of  the  same  kind  may  be  seen  at  a  more  primitive 
level  in  the  Uzbek  poems.  When  the  hero,  Alpamys,  being  only 
fourteen  years  old,  chooses  a  horse,  he  knows  what  he  is  doing  and 
picks  one  called  Baichibar,  who  serves  him  all  through  his  career. 
When  he  is  selected  and  mounted  by  the  young  hero,  the  horse  is 
assailed  by  powerful  emotions  : 

Baichibar,  like  a  dromedary,  felt  his  knees  sink, 

From  his  eyes  poured  tears  mixed  with  blood, 

He  pricked  up  his  ears  and  three  times  made  a  mighty  bound, 

But  Alpamys  did  not  let  him  go. 

He  at  once  made  him  feel  his  immeasurable  strength, 

Baichibar  now  spoke  a  word  to  himself, 

That  on  him  there  sits  a  man 

Whom  he  cannot  throw  over  his  tail  to  his  feet. 

"It  means  that  he  is  my  master  ", 

Thought  Baichibar  and  became  quiet.* 

Once  the  horse  accepts  its  master  as  worthy  of  it,  it  becomes  his 
best  and  most  faithful  friend.  The  show  of  resistance  at  the  start 
shows  that  it  too  has  a  heroic  nature  and  is  not  prepared  to  give 
its  devotion  to  any  but  the  best  commander.  The  Uzbek  heroes 
also  treat  their  horses  with  a  Homeric  intimacy  and  remind  them 
of  what  they  have  done  for  them.  Even  if  Khushkelli  speaks  with 
oriental  flamboyance  and  rotundity,  his  sentiments  are  not 
ultimately  very  different  from  Hector's  : 

"  I  have  given  you  human  milk  that  you  may  be  sharp-sighted 

as  a  man, 
I  have  given  you  mare's  milk  that  you  may  outstrip  all  in  my 

people, 

1  //.  viii,  184-90.  2  Ibid,  xix,  400. 

3  Ibid,  xxiii,  403-5.  4  Zhirmunskii-Zarifov,  p.  356. 

1 60 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

I  have  given  you  cow's  milk  that  your  mouth  may  be  like  a  calf's, 
I  have  given  you  mule's  milk  that  your  spirit  may  be  strong, 
I  have  given  you  jennet's  milk  that  you  may  know  the  way  like 

a  jennet, 

I  have  given  you  sheep's  milk  that  you  may  be  gentle  as  a  sheep, 
I  have  given  you  goat's  milk  that  you  may  always  leap  like  a  goat, 
I  have  given  you  camel's  milk  that  you  may  carry  loads  patiently 

like  a  camel, 

I  have  given  you  dog's  milk  that  you  may  go  forward  like  a  dog, 
I  have  given  you  snake's  milk,  that  you  may  crawl  forward  like 

a  snake, 
I  have  given  you  chamois'  milk  that  you  may  climb  slopes  like 

a  chamois, 
I  have  given  you  deer's  milk  that  you  may  be  keen  of  sight  as 

a  deer, 
I  have  given  you  bear's  milk  that  you  may  be  brave  as  a  bear."  l 

This  by  no  means  exhausts  the  catalogue.  The  poet  has  of  course 
an  ulterior  purpose  in  using  this  elaborate  device.  It  may  serve  a 
use  in  the  narrative,  but  it  also  helps  to  enumerate  all  the  qualities 
which  a  warrior  would  like  to  have  in  his  horse.  None  the  less  it 
shows,  in  however  exaggerated  a  manner,  what  the  warrior  is 
prepared  to  do  for  his  horse  to  make  it  surpass  all  other  horses  in 
his  heroic  world. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  relations  between  a  hero  and  his 
horse  is  that  between  Marko  Kraljevic  and  Sarac.  Sarac  plays  a 
large  part  in  the  varied  adventures  of  his  master  and  is  inseparable 
from  him.  There  is  nothing  that  Marko  will  not  do  for  his  horse. 
He  gives  it  wine  to  drink,  embraces  and  kisses  it,  promises  it 
horseshoes  of  gold  and  silver,  and  conversely  threatens  it  with 
hideous  punishments.  The  result  is  that  there  is  little  that  Sarac 
cannot  do.  In  pursuit  of  a  Vila  or  mountain-spirit  it  leaps  the 
length  of  three  spears  into  the  air.  It  treads  down  its  master's 
enemies  in  battle,  and,  while  Marko  engages  a  Moor  in  fight,  goes 
for  the  Moor's  horse,  puts  its  teeth  into  it,  and  tears  off  its  right 
ear.  When  Marko  and  Sarac  both  grow  old,  they  go  out  together 
and,  when  Sarac  stumbles  and  sheds  tears,  Marko  knows  that  no 
good  awaits  them.  So  he  addresses  Sarac  in  affectionate  words  : 

"  What  ails,  Sarac  ?     My  good  horse,  what  ails  thee  ? 

We  have  shared  a  hundred  years  and  sixty, 

Never  yet  till  now  has  thy  foot  failed  thee, 

But  to-day  thou  stumblest  as  thou  goest, 

And,  God  knows,  no  good  thing  this  forebodeth. 

Of  us  twain,  the  one  will  lose  his  head,  sure, 

Be  it  my  head  or  be  it  thine  haply."  2 

1   Idem,  p.  359.  2  Karadzic,  ii,  p.  405. 

161 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Knowing  that  his  own  end  is  near,  Marko  kills  and  buries  Sarac, 
that  he  may  not  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Turks  and  "  carry  their 
copper  water-pots  ".  A  hero  like  Marko  is  more  intimately 
affectionate  with  his  horse  than  with  any  human  companion. 

Naturally  enough,  in  such  conditions  horses  develop  their 
characters,  which,  so  far  as  loyalty  and  courage  are  concerned,  are 
often  the  equal  of  their  masters'.  So  Sigurth's  horse,  Grani, 
resembles  him  in  its  unflinching  loyalty  and  taste  for  great  adven- 
tures. It  will  do  for  him  what  it  will  not  do  for  another.  So  when 
Gunnar  mounts  it  and  tries  to  pass  through  the  flames  to  Brynhild, 
Grani  refuses  to  move,  but,  when  Sigurth  mounts  it,  it  goes  at 
once.  When  he  is  killed,  Grani  is  the  first  to  lament  him,  as 
Hogni  notices  : 

"  The  gray  horse  mourns      by  his  master  dead."  l 

Grani  is  a  heroic  horse  of  the  truest  breed.  The  Armenian  horse, 
Dzhalali,  is  a  family  horse  which  serves  and  survives  several 
generations.  It  is  ready  to  do  quite  menial  duties  and  does  them 
with  great  success,  as  when  unguided  it  carries  the  infant  David 
from  Armenia  to  Egypt.  It  is  full  of  cunning  as  well  as  strength, 
and  when  the  Sultan  of  Egypt  tries  to  imprison  it  behind  a  high 
wall,  Dzhalali  is  more  than  equal  to  the  occasion  : 

Then  Melik's  eyes  began  to  flame. 

He  said  : 

"  Ho  !  shut  the  doors  fast ! 

If  the  horse  Dzhalali  falls  into  our  hands, 

We  shall  keep  it !  " 

They  shut  the  doors,  and  in  that  same  moment 

A  hundred  horsemen  surrounded  the  horse, 

And  wished  to  catch  it. 

Then  the  stallion  Dzhalali  said  to  itself : 

"  O  Lord  !  how  shall  I  escape  ?  " 

He  leaped  to  the  left,  he  leaped  to  the  right, 

He  flew  to  the  wall. 

He  prayed  :  "  Lord,  give  me  strength  to  leap  over  the  wall. 

I  shall  not  escape  —  I  shall  be  lost  here." 

Then  the  leaping  horse  Dzhalali  gathered  his  strength, 

And  the  people  could  not  stop  him. 

There  was  a  wall  eight  feet  high, 

But  the  leaper  leaped,  leaped  over  it 

And  vanished  in  the  distance.2 

This  is  the  way  in  which  a  hero,  placed  in  similar  circumstances, 
would  like  to  behave.  The  horse  Dzhalali  is  so  well  trained  to 
heroic  actions  that  it  knows  what  to  do  in  an  unforeseen  crisis. 

1  Brot  af  Sigurtharkvithu,  7,  3.  2  David  Sasunskii,  p.  140. 

162 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

In  such  matters  as  houses,  gardens,  weapons,  ships,  and  horses 
heroic  poets  practise  on  the  whole  a  realistic  art,  using  these 
elements  of  common  life  to  add  to  the  persuasiveness  and  solidity 
of  their  narratives.  But  this  task  is  matched  by  another  of  an 
opposite  kind.  Heroic  tales  often  deal  with  the  unknown  or  the 
impossible,  which  have  to  be  made  credible  to  the  audience. 
This  too  demands  a  kind  of  realism.  Untutored  fancy  must  be 
guided  by  a  keen  sense  of  how  such  things  would  happen.  Situa- 
tions of  which  the  poet  and  his  audience  know  nothing  must  be 
woven  into  the  text  of  the  poem  without  too  great  a  jump  from 
ordinary  life  to  impossible  fancy.  The  treatment  of  horses  may 
illustrate  this  just  as  it  illustrates  the  needs  of  ordinary  life.  We 
pass  almost  imperceptibly  from  the  possible  to  the  impossible. 
It  is  an  easy  assumption  that  a  horse  is  capable  of  thinking  and 
feeling,  and  it  is  but  a  small  step  to  making  it  interpret  its  master's 
fears  and  desires.  So  a  Kalmuck  horse  sees  what  its  master  wants 
and  acts  accordingly  : 

His  swift  grey  horse  heard  these  words  in  his  mind. 

It  lifted  its  fore-legs  under  its  chin, 

It  jumped  over  three  high  hills  one  after  the  other, 

It  raised  its  beautiful  hind-legs  up  to  its  tail  and  bolted, 

It  bolted  and  from  behind  it,  like  a  rifle  bullet, 

With  a  whistle  fly  clods  of  earth  from  its  hoofs. 

To  the  sky  whirls  in  twelve  streams 

Cloudy  red  dust  from  its  four  beautiful  hoofs. 

Beautiful  as  a  sea-shell 

The  foam  rises  on  its  head.1 

Despite  the  exaggeration,  the  main  effect  is  realistic  and  convincing, 
since  this  is  a  very  superior  horse  from  whom  much  is  to  be 
expected.  So  too  when  Marko  Kraljevic  hears  that  the  Turks  are 
exacting  a  marriage-tax  from  the  people  of  Kosovo,  he  gets  into  a 
fury  which  he  communicates  to  his  horse  : 

Urging  Sarac  he  went  to  Kosovo, 
And  he  spurred  good  Sarac  into  fury, 
From  his  hoofs  a  living  flame  came  flashing, 
And  a  blue  flame  rose  up  from  his  nostrils.2 

Beneath  the  lively  fancy  is  the  sensible  notion  that  a  horse  knows 
what  its  master  wants  and  does  its  best  to  please  him. 

Exaggeration  of  a  horse's  performances  may  be  carried  quite 
far,  especially  when  it  comes  to  their  covering  wide  stretches  of 
country  at  a  great  speed.  Just  as  Russian  horses  think  little  of 
leaping  from  mountain  to  mountain  or  crossing  rivers  and  lakes  at 

1  Dzhangariada,  p.  119.  2  Karadzic,  ii,  p.  387. 

163 


HEROIC  POETRY 
one  stride,  so  Uzbek  horses  are  similarly  gifted  : 

If  he  meets  a  ravine,  he  jumps  over  it ; 
If  he  meets  a  hill-side,  he  passes  it ; 
If  he  meets  a  level  place,  he  makes  play  with  it 
If  he  meets  a  river,  he  springs  over  it ; 
If  he  meets  a  gully,  he  leaps  over  it. 
or 

Holes  and  low  places  he  does  not  notice, 
On  the  road  he  pays  no  attention  to  them.1 

Natural  obstacles  present  little  trouble  to  heroic  horses  and  tend  to 
inspire  rather  than  to  discourage  them.  So  Dzhalali,  the  horse 
of  David  of  Sasoun,  deals  lightly  with  distances  and  atmospheric 
disturbances : 

When  David  set  out  on  his  journey, 

So  thick  a  fog  fell  on  the  earth 

That  he  could  not  see  the  way  anywhere. 

But  like  a  dove  Dzhalali  flew  through  the  fog. 

"  This  is  the  work  of  God's  hand  ", 

Said  David, 

"  It  is  better  now  to  give  rein 

To  my  horse  Dzhalali 

To  race  wheresoever  he  will." 

Such  is  Dzhalali  !     He  flew  and  flew 

And  accomplished  a  seven  days'  journey  in  an  hour. 

He  lighted  on  the  peak  of  a  mountain, 

He  leaped  on  the  crest  of  a  mountain,  and  stood  still. 

Suddenly  the  fog  flew  away.2 

The  horse  may  be  subject  to  its  master's  will  but  it  does  much  that 
is  beyond  his  powers,  and  in  describing  how  this  happens  the  poets 
provide  some  charming  variations  on  the  old  theme  of  the  rider 
and  his  mount. 

If  a  horse  can  do  such  feats  in  the  course  of  an  ordinary 
journey,  it  is  capable  of  even  more  when  its  master's  honour  is  to 
be  tested  by  battle  or  something  else  equally  stringent.  Such  a 
test  may  be  a  wager  between  two  heroes  on  the  relative  worth  of 
their  horses,  and  in  the  ensuing  contest  the  better  horse  wins,  and 
with  it  the  better  master.  The  Russian  poet,  for  instance,  tells  of 
the  wager  between  Dyuk  Stepanovich  and  Churilo  Plenkovich 
and  of  the  part  which  their  horses  play  in  it : 

Then  Dyuk  bestrode  his  good  steed, 

And  rode  with  young  Churilo  Plenkovich 

Over  the  glorious,  free,  open  plain  ; 

And  they  rode  away  beyond  the  free,  open  plain, 

1  Zhirmunskii-Zarifov,  p.  371.  2  David  Sasunskii,  p.  236. 

164 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

With  their  whole  equine  strength, 
And  leapt  across  the  river,  mother  Dnepr, 
On  their  good  heroic  steeds  ; 
Young  Dyuk  Stepanovich,  the  prince's  son, 
He  leapt  across  the  river,  mother  Dnepr, 
On  his  good  heroic  steed, 
And  with  a  single  equine  bound 
He  leapt  quite  a  whole  verst  beyond  ; 
And  he  looked  over  his  right  shoulder, 
When  his  comrade  did  not  follow  him, 
Young  Churilushka  Oplenkovich, 
Churilo  Plenkovich  had  gone  splash  into  the  middle 
of  the  Dnepr.1 

Much  of  the  phraseology  here  comes  from  the  ordinary  mechanics 
of  equitation,  but  the  episode  has  a  new  point  because  the  horse  is 
treated  as  a  superequine  creature  with  very  unusual  gifts. 

If  a  horse  can  think,  it  is  but  a  small  step  to  make  it  speak. 
It  is  only  another  sign  of  the  close  intimacy  which  exists  between 
the  mount  and  its  rider.  In  shamanistic  poetry  this  is  common 
enough.  The  Tibetan  Kesar  is  saved  from  disaster  by  his  horse's 
prescience,2  and  in  the  poems  of  the  Abakan  Tatars  horses  often 
speak.3  The  belief  passes  easily  into  heroic  poetry  where  the  horse 
has  many  of  the  qualities  of  its  master  and  is  often  superior  to 
him  in  constancy  and  courage.  At  times  it  keeps  him  to  the  mark 
by  resolving  his  fears  and  doubts.  So  in  the  Kazak  Sain  Batyr, 
when  the  hero  prepares  himself  for  a  dangerous  enterprise,  he  has 
some  misgivings,  but  his  horse  resolves  them  for  him  : 

He  took  out  his  saddle  and  saddle-cover, 

Calling  on  God  he  went  to  his  horse  ; 

When  he  put  on  the  saddle  and  saddle-cover, 

When  he  tightened  the  girth, 

The  horse  opened  its  mouth, 

It  spoke  like  a  man  : 

"  Sain,  hero,  be  not  afraid  ! 

Flee  not,  because  they  are  many. 

The  strength  that  God  has  given  thee, 

Display  it  on  this  quest ! 

The  outspread  hosts, 

If  thou  severest  them  not,  it  is  thy  fault ! 

If  I  let  myself  fall  before  the  arrows,  it  is  my  fault. 

I  will  advance  blithely, 

I  will  go  gracefully  like  a  maiden."  4 

Hero  and  horse  make,  as  it  were,  a  bargain  on  how  to  behave  in 
battle  and  agree  that,  if  each  does  his  part  properly,  all  will  be  well. 

1  Rybnikov,  i,  p.  108  ;  Chadwick,  R.H.P.  p.  113.  *  David-Neel,  p.  107. 

3  Cohn,  p.  40  ff.,  p.  80  ff.  4  Radlov,  iii,  p.  253  ;  cf.  Orlov,  p.  61. 

'65 


HEROIC  POETRY 

The  admirable  Armenian  horse,  Dzhalali,  addresses  David  with 
the  privileged  frankness  of  an  old  family  retainer.  David  is  a 
brave  fighter,  but  has  reasonable  fears  about  the  outcome  of  the 
battle  which  awaits  him.  Dzhalali  will  have  none  of  them  and  chides 
him,  promising  that  he  need  have  no  doubts  so  far  as  his  horse  is 
concerned  : 

"  Ah,  man  of  little  faith,  why  this  fear  ? 

As  many  as  your  sword  shall  smite, 

So  many  shall  I  scorch  with  my  fiery  breath  ! 

As  many  as  your  sword  shall  smite, 

So  many  shall  I  throw  down  with  my  breast ! 

As  many  as  your  sword  shall  smite, 

So  many  shall  I  crush  with  my  hoofs  ! 

Lose  not  heart !     Spur  me  on  ! 

You  shall  not  be  parted  from  me."  l 

With  such  a  partner  the  hero  has  little  to  fear.  David's  confidence 
is  restored,  and  he  goes  gaily  to  battle. 

When  danger  is  afoot,  horses  are  often  quicker  to  detect  it  than 
their  masters.  The  Tatar  poets  often  dwell  on  this  point  and 
like  to  show  a  horse's  intelligence  at  work.  It  is  credited  with 
insight  and  knowledge  beyond  its  master's,  and  is  often  able  to 
warn  him  of  danger  ahead  or  to  inform  him  of  something  of  which 
he  is  ignorant.  When  a  Kazak  hero  wishes  to  go  on  an  expedition, 
his  horse  warns  him  against  it : 

The  Busurman  Tsar  went  on  a  journey, 

Vasyanka  went  in  pursuit  of  him. 

Then  his  good  horse  spoke  to  him 

In  a  clever  human  voice  : 

"  Go  not,  Vasinka,  unarmed, 

Go  not  to  the  people  of  the  Busurmans, 

The  people  of  the  Busurmans  are  crafty  and  cunning  : 

We  can  neither  of  us  live  among  them/'  2 

So,  when  the  Russian  Dobrynya  is  long  absent  from  home,  and 
his  wife,  in  the  belief  that  he  is  dead,  is  about  to  marry  Alyosha 
Popovich,  his  horse  somehow  knows  it  and  breaks  the  news  to 
its  master : 

Now  Dobrynya  chanced  to  be  at  Tsargrad, 

And  Dobrynya's  horse  stumbled  : 

"  Oh,  you  food  for  wolves,  you  bear's  skin  ! 

Why  are  you  stumbling  to-day  ?  " 

The  good  steed  addressed  him, 

Addressed  him  in  human  voice  : 

"  Ah,  my  beloved  master  ! 

1  David  Sasunskii,  p.  240.  2  Orlov,  p.  37. 

1 66 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

You  see  not  the  misfortune  which  has  befallen  you  ; 

Your  young  wife  Nastasya  Nikulichna 

Has  married  bold  Alyosha  Popovich  ; 

They  are  holding  a  feast  for  three  days  ; 

To-day  they  go  to  holy  Church, 

To  receive  the  crowns  of  gold.'*  I 

Sometimes  the  hero  gets  annoyed  when  his  horse  warns  him  of 
danger,  as  Ilya  of  Murom  does  when  his  horse  stumbles  on  the  way 
to  Nightingale  the  Robber.2  But  the  horse,  being  a  good  servant, 
does  not  complain  and  continues  bravely  to  do  what  is  expected 
of  it. 

Even  when  it  is  parted  from  its  master  a  horse  will  keep  its 
loyalty  and  intelligence  and  power  of  speech.  Marko 's  horse, 
Sarac,  shows  itself  at  its  best  in  the  episode  of  his  master's 
encounter  with  Philip  the  Magyar.  Marko  is  drinking  in  a  tavern 
and  Sarac  stands  on  guard  outside,  when  Philip  comes  up  and 
tries  to  force  his  way  inside,  horse  and  all.  Sarac  rises  to  the 
occasion  : 

By  the  tavern  door  was  Sarac  tethered. 
Philip  urged  his  gray  Arab  mare  onward, 
He  would  have  her  enter  the  new  tavern, 
But  the  war-horse  Sarac  would  not  let  him. 
With  his  hoofs  upon  her  ribs  he  struck  her ; 
Then  Philip  the  Magyar  waxed  in  anger, 
He  took  up  his  studded  mace,  and  with  it 
Made  to  smite  Sarac  before  the  tavern. 
But  Sarac  cried  out  before  the  tavern  : 
"  God  of  mercy,  woe  is  me,  who  must  now 
Meet  my  death  this  morning  by  the  tavern 
At  the  hands  of  great  Philip  the  Magyar, 
When  my  famous  lord  is  not  far  distant !  "  3 

Marko  tells  Sarac  to  let  Philip  pass,  with  the  result  that  Marko 
cuts  off  Philip's  head.  Sarac  shares  his  master's  recklessness  and 
gaiety.  He  is  not  afraid  to  cry  out  when  he  sees  danger,  but  even 
at  the  most  critical  moments  he  keeps  his  wits  and  remains  in 
command  of  himself  and  his  circumstances. 

It  is  not  always  easy  for  a  man  to  win  the  confidence  of  a  horse. 
He  must  first  prove  his  worth  and  his  claims  and  show  that  he  is 
likely  to  be  a  worthy  master.  When  David  of  Sasoun  first  finds 
the  horse  Dzhalali,  which  belonged  to  his  father,  Mher,  and  has 
been  hidden  away  for  years,  he  has  to  impress  his  personality  on  a 
creature  which  has  its  full  share  of  heroic  pride  and  independence. 
Dzhalali  does  not  know  who  David  is  and  is  not  impressed  by  him 

1   Rybnikov,  i,  p.  165  ;  Chadwick,  R.H.P.  p.  84. 
2  Rybnikov,  i,  p.  17.  3  Karadzic,  ii,  p.  325. 

167  M 


HEROIC  POETRY 

at  his  first  appearance.  He  is  naturally  suspicious  and  takes  some 
convincing  before  he  is  ready  to  co-operate  : 

Dzhalali  saw  that  it  was  not  Mher  before  him. 

The  horse  thundered  with  its  hoofs  on  the  earth, 

And  fire  spurted  from  the  earth. 

In  human  speech  the  horse  spoke  : 

"  You  are  dust,  and  to  dust  I  shall  turn  you  ! 

What  are  you  going  to  do  with  me  ?  " 

David  said  :   "  I  shall  sit  on  your  back  !  " 

Dzhalali  speaks  :  "  I  shall  lift  you  up  to  the  height, 

I  shall  strike  you  on  the  sun  and  burn  you  up  !  " 

David  said  :   "  I  shall  turn  round 

And  hide  under  your  belly  !  " 

The  horse  said :   "  Then  I  shall  fall  on  a  mountain, 

I  shall  let  you  fall,  I  shall  cut  you  to  pieces  on  a  crag  !  " 

David  said :  "  I  shall  return, 

And  I  shall  sit  on  your  back  !  " 

The  horse  said  :  "  If  that  is  so, 

You  are  my  master,  and  I  am  your  horse !  " 

David  answered  the  horse  : 

"  You  have  not  had  a  master,  but  I  will  be  he  ! 

They  have  not  fed  you  or  watered  you,  but  I  will  feed  and  water 

you  ! 
They  have  not  combed  you,  but  I  will  comb  you  and  soap  you  !  "  l 

By  this  kind  of  persuasion  Dzhalali  is  broken  in  and  becomes 
David's  faithful  servant. 

When  its  master  dies,  a  horse  feels  that  its  life  is  ended  and  has 
no  meaning.    When  Manas  is  killed,  his  horse  is  inconsolable  : 

Manas'  horse,  the  cream-coloured, 
By  the  ground  of  the  day-dwelling, 
By  the  ground  of  the  night-dwelling, 
Gurgled  and  drank  not  water, 
Foamed  and  ate  not  grass. 
On  its  ribs  black  flies  gather. 
It  howls  and  stands  by  the  house, 
Lies  down  by  the  grave  of  Manas, 
Is  parched  like  a  stone  image. 
On  the  ground  of  the  day-dwelling, 
On  the  ground  of  the  night-dwelling, 
It  neighs  and  looks  at  the  sky.2 

Indeed  so  great  is  the  grief  of  Manas'  horse  and  of  the  hawk  and 
the  hound  with  it,  that  God  sends  angels  down  to  ask  its  cause,  and 
this  leads  to  Manas'  resurrection.  Here  indeed  the  horse  does  not 
actually  speak,  though  we  might  presume  that  its  grief  is  too  great 
for  words.  What  a  horse  may  feel  about  a  lost  master  can  be  seen 

1  David  Sasunskiiy  p.  231  ff.  z  Radlov,  v,  p.  123. 

168 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

from  the  Bulgarian  Warrior  and  Horse,  which  tells  how  a  warrior 
lies  dead,  with  a  bullet  in  his  breast,  while  hawks  fly  above,  and  his 
white  horse  beats  the  earth  with  its  hoofs  and  calls  him  : 

"  Rise  up  quickly,  my  brave  master, 
Set  your  foot  in  the  steel  stirrup, 
Stretch  your  hand  forth  to  the  bridle. 
Mother  at  your  home  laments  you, 
Day  and  night  she  weeps  in  sorrow  ; 
No  more  will  you  leap,  my  hero, 
At  late  eve  or  early  morning, 
Out  of  tavern  into  tavern. 
You  will  feast  no  more,  my  hero, 
With  your  valorous  companions  — 
In  the  cold  grave  you  lie  buried."  l 

The  poet's  simple  and  sincere  imagination  pictures  the  horse 
lamenting  for  its  master  with  the  loyalty  of  a  devoted  servant. 

Sometimes  the  theme  of  a  horse's  devotion  inspires  heroic 
poetry  to  what  is  more  than  pleasant  fancy.  Sigurth's  horse, 
Grani,  shares  his  dangers  and  triumphs  and  accompanies  him  in 
his  great  undertakings.  It  is  also  with  him  at  his  death.  In  the 
Second  Lay  of  Guthnmy  when  Guthrun  tells  the  story  of  this  death, 
she  relates  how  she  first  discovered  what  had  happened  : 

From  the  Thing  ran  Grani      with  thundering  feet, 
But  thence  did  Sigurth      himself  come  never  ; 
Covered  with  sweat      was  the  saddle-bearer, 
Wont  the  warrior's      weight  to  bear. 

Weeping  I  sought      with  Grani  to  speak, 
With  tear-wet  cheeks      for  the  tale  I  asked  ; 
The  head  of  Grani      was  bowed  to  the  grass, 
The  steed  knew  well      his  master  was  slain.2 

The  horse's  silence  is  more  effective  and  more  moving  than  any 
speech,  and  the  poet  shows  how  well  he  understands  the  human 
experience  behind  the  traditional  theme  of  the  faithful  horse,  as 
he  shapes  it  to  a  new  success  which  is  both  close  to  common  life 
and  yet  profoundly  tragic.  Another  striking  variation  on  this 
theme  occurs  in  the  Iliad.  When  at  last  Achilles  goes  again  to  the 
battlefield,  Homer  prepares  with  care  the  preliminaries  to  the  great 
episode.  After  getting  into  his  chariot,  Achilles  addresses  his 
horses  and  tells  them  that  their  task  is  to  bring  the  body  of 
Patroclus  back  from  the  battlefield.  Then  the  horse,  Xanthus, 
bows  its  head  until  its  mane  reaches  the  ground,  and  the  goddess 
Hera  gives  it  a  voice  : 

1   Derzhavin,  p.  91.  2  Guthrunarkvitha,  ii,  4-5. 

169 


HEROIC  POETRY 

"  In  very  truth  shall  we  save  you  this  time,  O  mighty  Achilles  ; 
Yet  is  the  day  of  your  doom  very  near  ;  and  truly  in  no  wise 
Are  we  to  blame,  but  a  powerful  god  and  masterful  fortune. 
Nay,  it  was  not  because  we  were  sluggish  or  slow  that  the  Trojans 
Stripped  the  armour  away  from  the  shoulders  and  breast  of 

Patroclus  ; 

Nay,  but  the  noblest  of  gods,  who  has  fair-haired  Leto  for  mother, 
Slew  him  among  the  foremost  and  gave  great  glory  to  Hector. 
As  for  us,  we  could  race  as  fast  as  the  breath  of  the  West  Wind, 
Whom  they  say  is  the  lightest  of  winds  ;  but  you  shall  in  battle 
Meet  your  death  from  a  god  and  a  man  ;  for  so  is  it  fated."  l 

Homer  moves  with  consummate  skill  from  the  ordinary  theme  of 
a  hero  driving  to  battle  to  a  forecast  of  his  death  from  his  horse. 
With  his  Greek  moderation  and  wisdom  he  first  makes  the  horse 
understand  what  Achilles  says,  and  then  he  explains  the  miraculous 
sequel  by  attributing  it  to  a  goddess.  All  is  kept  in  hand  ;  for  even 
the  prophetic  words  of  the  horse  are  explicable  on  the  ancient 
belief  that  horses  have  gifts  of  prophecy.2  The  essential  realism 
of  the  scene  is  maintained  when  Achilles  is  angry  with  the  horse 
and  tells  it  that  he  knows  well  of  his  impending  doom  but  will 
continue  to  fight  until  the  Trojans  have  had  enough  of  war. 

Another  testing  subject  with  which  a  heroic  poet  has  to  deal 
is  monsters.  Though  he  almost  certainly  believes  in  their  exist- 
ence, he  cannot  know  what  they  are  like,  but  has  none  the  less  to 
make  them  credible  and  fearful.  Of  course  tradition  helps  him  up 
to  a  point,  but  tradition  may  be  ill  informed  and  not  give  him  much 
to  work  with.  The  situation  is  naturally  quite  different  with 
"  literary  "  poets  who  present  monsters  in  the  full  knowledge  that 
they  are  imaginary  and  that  the  play  of  imagination  round  them  is 
fully  permissible.  Camoens  and  Racine  and  Ariosto  can  produce 
their  monsters  of  the  deep  and  describe  them  in  lively  detail 
because  no  one  will  contradict.  The  same  is  also  true  of  such 
semi-allegorical  figures  as  Virgil's  Rumour  and  Milton's  Sin.  In 
such  cases  what  matters  is  the  oddity  of  the  presentation,  the  very 
monstrosity  of  the  monster,  who,  being  outside  actual  experience, 
is  exempt  from  the  laws  of  biology.  With  heroic  poets  it  is 
different.  They  believe  that  monsters  exist  and  are  fearful  and 
hideous,  but  beyond  that  they  have  little  to  guide  them,  and  their 
presentation  of  them  is  determined  by  these  conditions.  They 
must  somehow  convince  their  audiences  and  create  the  right 
degree  of  fear  and  horror. 

The  simplest  way  to  present  a  monster  is  to  assume  that 

1  //.  xix,  408-18. 
2  E.  Samter,  Volkskunde  in  Homer  (Berlin,  1923),  p,  89  ff. 

170 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

everyone  knows  what  it  is  and  that  it  therefore  needs  no  descrip- 
tion. Such  a  method  is  legitimate  when  the  poet  and  his  audience 
share  some  fundamental  convictions  about  the  supernatural 
creatures  which  exist  in  the  world.  This  is  the  case  with  the 
Armenians  whose  poems  are  full  of  malignant  devils.  These  play 
a  considerable  part  in  the  action  and  cause  much  trouble  to  the 
heroes,  but  their  appearance  is  not  described,  presumably  because 
the  poet  and  his  audience  are  sufficiently  in  agreement  about  it 
for  description  to  be  unnecessary.  What  matters  is  not  the  devils' 
appearance  but  their  actions,  and  these  the  poets  present  realistic- 
ally as  human  enough  to  be  intelligible.  This  art  may  be  illus- 
trated from  an  episode  in  which  the  hero  Mher  deals  with  a  devil. 
He  is  prevented  from  drinking  at  a  fountain  by  two  of  the  devil's 
servants  and,  after  killing  them,  finds  the  devil's  cave  and  his  wife, 
who  falls  in  love  with  him  and  offers  him  help.  He  retires  and 
waits  for  his  chance.  Then  the  story  proceeds  and  shows  how  the 
White  Devil,  as  he  is  called,  behaves  : 

The  White  Devil  drank  and  ate, 

He  got  drunk.     He  wanted  water. 

Long,  long  he  looked  from  the  mountain  ; 

His  water-carriers  do  not  bring  him  water. 

He  says  :   "  Has  some  ill  chance  befallen  them  ? 

I  scent  that  a  human  warrior  has  encountered  them." 

The  White  Devil  got  up  and  sat 

On  a  whirlwind-horse,  hurried  to  the  spring, 

He  looks  suddenly  :  on  the  path  to  his  cave 

Sits  someone  terrible  like  a  mountain, 

His  fire-breathing  horse  pastures  by  him, 

And  beneath  the  rock  groans  a  water-carrier. 

The  White  Devil  called  out  to  Mher  : 

"  Hey,  human  !     Neither  birds  on  the  wing  nor  snakes 

on  the  belly 

Fly  hither  or  crawl  hither. 
How  have  you  dared  to  come  hither  to  me  ?  "  l 

Mher  reveals  his  identity  and  says  that  he  has  come  to  fight.  Then 
the  story  comes  rapidly  to  its  end  :  the  White  Devil  makes  a 
dishonest  proposal : 

"  Aye,  aye,  it  is  good  to  visit  here  ! 

Arise,  come  into  my  dwelling, 

We  will  feast  till  the  morning. 

We  will  fight  it  out  afterwards  !  " 

"  No  !  "  answered  Mher.   "  My  forefathers  left  me  a  testament. 

Whenever  you  meet  an  enemy,  delay  not  to  fight  with  him." 

1  David  Sasunskii,  p.  115. 
171 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Then  the  Devil  drove  his  horse  at  Mher, 
And  Mher  drove  his  horse  at  the  Devil. 
Three  days  and  three  nights  they  fought, 
Neither  achieved  anything. 
As  soon  as  Mher  seized  the  Devil, 
He  sank  his  hand  into  his  body, 
As  if  the  Devil  were  made  of  dough. 
Only  on  the  third  day  did  Mher  kill  him.1 

Except  for  the  neat  touch  that  the  Devil  is  made  of  a  substance  like 
dough,  his  presentation  is  on  recognisably  human  lines.  He  is  a 
sly  and  treacherous  creature  whose  actions  are  sufficiently  like 
those  of  men  not  to  require  detailed  description. 

This  is  the  simplest  way  to  deal  with  monsters,  but  it  is 
possible  only  if  the  audience  knows  about  them  and  does  not  ask 
for  fuller  information.  More  often  something  lurid  is  expected, 
but  the  poets  are  usually  economical  in  what  they  say  and  do  not 
take  too  many  risks.  They  conform  to  their  own  kind  of  realism 
in  dealing  with  these  creatures  of  the  unknown.  The  result  is  that 
even  when  they  seem  to  be  presenting  a  clear  picture,  they  leave 
much  vague  and  undescribed.  Take,  for  instance,  the  Russian 
poet's  account  of  the  monster,  Tugarin,  whom  Alyosha  Popovich 
encounters : 

"  I  have  seen  Tugarin  the  Dragon's  son  ; 

Tugarin  is  twenty  feet  high, 

The  span  between  his  sloping  shoulders  is  seven  feet, 

Between  his  eyes  is  the  width  of  a  tempered  arrow, 

The  horse  beneath  him  is  like  a  ferocious  wild  beast, 

From  his  jaws  pour  burning  flames, 

From  his  ears  comes  a  column  of  smoke."  2 

All  that  Alyosha  says  is  that  Tugarin  is  of  monstrous  size  and 
belches  flame  and  smoke.  That  is  enough  to  make  him  formidable 
and  hideous,  but  leaves  enough  unsaid  for  him  not  to  become 
unconvincing.  In  other  descriptions  of  Tugarin  wings  are  added, 
but  an  air  of  vagueness  is  maintained  and  probability  is  not 
unduly  outraged. 

The  poet  of  Gilgamish  employs  a  similar  art  in  a  more  accom- 
plished manner  when  he  tells  of  the  expedition  of  Gilgamish  and 
Enkidu  against  Humbaba.  He  guards  a  forest  of  cedars,  which 
Gilgamish  wishes  to  possess,  and  has  been  given  special  powers  by 
the  Sun-god  and  the  Storm-god,  but  his  appearance  and  habits 
are  left  vague.  The  poet  tells  of  him  : 

1  David  Sasuns kit,  p.  116. 
2  Kireevski,  ii,  p.  72.    For  other  accounts  cf.  Sokolov,  pp.  38,  42-4,  124. 

172 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

To  guard  the  Forest  of  Cedars, 

To  terrify  mortals,  Enlil  has  appointed  him, 

Has  appointed  Humbaba,  whose  roar  is  a  whirlwind, 

Flame  is  in  his  jaws,  and  his  breath  is  death  ! 

If  in  the  forest  he  hears  a  tread  on  the  road, 

He  asks  "  Who  is  this  who  comes  to  the  Forest  ?  " 

To  guard  the  Forest  of  Cedars, 

To  terrify  mortals,  Enlil  has  appointed  him, 

And  evil  will  seize  whosoever  comes  to  the  Forest.1 

Even  when  it  comes  to  the  fight  between  the  heroes  and  Humbaba, 
the  poet  is  no  more  explicit.  What  wins  the  day  is  Gilgamish 's 
prayer  to  the  Sun-god  who  sends  eight  winds,  against  which 
Humbaba  is  helpless.  In  his  desperate  straits,  he  behaves  like  a 
man  and  asks  for  mercy  : 

"  Gilgamish,  stay  thy  hand. 

Be  thou  now  my  master,  and  I  will  be  thy  henchman  : 

Regard  not  the  words  which  I  boastfully  spoke  against  thee." 

The  offer  is  refused,  and  Humbaba's  head  is  cut  off.  Though  he  is 
a  fearful  brute,  the  poet  makes  him  real  partly  by  leaving  him 
vague,  partly  by  making  him  behave  like  a  human  being.  So  the 
main  difficulties  in  his  presentation  are  surmounted. 

The  method  of  Gilgamish  is  on  the  whole  that  of  most  heroic 
poets.  Of  the  many  dragons  who  play  a  part  in  these  stories  very 
few  receive  detailed  attention.  Indeed  the  poets  seldom  do  more 
than  mention  their  fiery  breath.  So  the  Norse  poet  who  tells  of 
Fafnir,  the  dragon  slain  by  Sigurth,  says  no  more  than 

The  fiery  dragon      alone  thou  shalt  fight 
That  greedy  lies      at  Gnitaheith.2 

Everyone  will  admit  that  a  dragon  is  greedy  and  fiery,  and  the  poet 
feels  no  call  to  say  more.  Nor  is  the  dragon  of  Beowulf  character- 
ised any  more  precisely,  though  he  plays  a  considerable  part  and 
causes  the  hero's  death.  He  guards  a  hoard  of  gold,  like  Fafnir, 
and  attacks  anyone  who  comes  near,  but  though  his  attacks  are 
deadly,  his  method  of  delivering  them  is  left  vague.  Indeed  almost 
his  only  characteristic  is  the  belching  of  flames.  On  this  the  poet 
dwells  both  when  the  dragon's  peace  is  first  disturbed  : 

Then  the  enemy  began      to  spit  forth  embers, 
To  burn  the  bright  houses  ;      a  blazing  light  shone 
Awful  to  all  men  ;  3 

and  when  he  comes  out  of  his  cave  to  fight  Beowulf : 

1   Gilgamish,  ill,  iv,   1-8.  2  Gripisspd,  n,  1-2. 

3  Beowulf,  2312-14. 

173 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Came  then  the  burning  one,      bowed  and  creeping, 
Speeding  to  his  doom.1 

In  the  last  encounter  the  poet  risks  a  little  more.  After  all,  he 
has  to  tell  how  the  dragon  kills  Beowulf  and  is  itself  killed.  So  he 
plucks  up  his  courage  and  says  : 

Then  the  tribe's  scather      a  third  time, 

The  fearsome  fire-dragon,      his  feud  remembered, 

Rushed  on  that  gallant  one,      when  room  he  gave  him, 

Hot  battle-grim      all  his  neck  he  grasped 

In  bitter  tooth-bones  ;      he  bloodied  was 

With  his  soul's  gore  ;      that  sweat  in  streams  gushed.2 

The  dragon,  it  seems,  can  bite,  as  well  as  breathe  flame,  but  its 
main  outlines  are  still  dim.  It  is  a  creature  of  horror  and  dread, 
and  there  is  no  call  to  present  it  too  concretely. 

Dragons  of  course  are  familiar  enough  to  the  untutored 
imagination  and  do  not  really  require  exact  delineation.  But 
sometimes  heroic  poets  have  to  deal  with  more  unusual  monsters. 
Yet  even  in  these  cases  they  tend  to  follow  the  same  technique  and 
to  rely  on  vague  horror  and  undefined  dread.  This  is  certainly 
what  the  poet  of  Beowulf  does  for  Grendel  and  his  Dam,  and  in 
so  doing  secures  some  of  his  greatest  successes.  What  counts  with 
Grendel  is  not  what  he  looks  like  but  what  he  does,  and  on  his  first 
appearance  the  poet  is  careful  to  stress  this  and  nothing  else : 

The  monster  of  unhealing, 
Grim  and  greedy,      was  speedily  yare, 
Fierce  and  furious,      and  took  from  their  beds 
Thirty  thegns.3 

When  Grendel  returns  to  Hrothgar's  hall  and  is  engaged  by 
Beowulf  in  single  combat,  the  air  of  mystery  is  maintained,  as 
befits  an  episode  in  the  darkness  of  night.  The  monster  seizes  a 
sleeping  man,  drinks  his  blood,  and  eats  his  flesh.  Beowulf  comes 
to  grips  with  Grendel  and  wrestles  with  him,  eventually  tearing  off 
his  arm.  But,  beyond  the  fact  that  Grendel  has  an  arm,  little  is 
said  about  him.  But  the  arm  is  used  skilfully  for  poetic  purposes. 
It  is  nailed  up  for  all  men  to  see  : 

'Twas  a  token  clear, 

When  that  battle-hero      the  hand  laid  down, 
The  arm  and  the  oxter      (it  was  all  there  together, 
GrendePs  grip  !)      under  the  groined  roof.* 

A  similar  art  is  applied  to  GrendePs  Dam,  when  Beowulf  sees 
her  in  her  lair  : 

1  Beowulf,  2569-70.  2  Ibid.  2688-93. 

3  Ibid.  120-23.  4  Ibid.  834-7. 

174 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

The  good  one  grew  ware  then      of  the  ground-lying  wolf, 
A  mighty  mer-wife.1 

Beowulf  wrestles  with  her,  as  he  did  with  Grendel,  and  finally  cuts 
off  her  head,  but  that  is  about  all  we  hear  about  her.  Such 
monsters  are  the  more  monstrous  for  being  kept  mysterious. 

In  general,  heroic  poets  treat  monsters  with  a  vagueness 
tempered  by  realism,  but  there  are  some  exceptions,  for  which  we 
can  usually  find  a  reasoru  The  Kazak  poet  who  tells  of  Alpamys  is 
on  the  whole  factual  •'and  realistic,  but  he  lets  himself  go  on  a 
revolting  creature  whom  the  hero  destroys  : 

His  breast  is  big  as  a  shield, 

His  beak  is  high  as  a  hill, 

His  single  tusk  is  like  a  hoe, 

His  throat  is  like  a  huge  grave. 

Where  he  sits,  he  fills  the  space  of  a  six-windowed  dwelling. 

His  ears  are  like  a  warrior's  shield, 

His  nose  is  like  a  crushed  husk  of  millet, 

His  eyes  are  like  deep  darkness, 

His  footstep  is  like  a  flaming  hearth, 

His  mouth  is  like  a  spit, 

His  single  tusk  is  like  a  knife, 

His  nostrils  are  like  a  cave, 

His  chin  is  big  as  a  basket.2 

The  poet,  who  knows  what  the  real  world  is  like,  seems  to  have 
tried  to  imagine  a  monster  and  to  present  him  as  he  would  actually 
appear.  Though  some  of  his  comparisons  indicate  no  more  than 
size,  others  give  visual  impressions,  and  though  these  are  not  very 
precise,  they  create  a  sufficient  effect  of  hugeness  and  horror^  So 
too  in  his  Manas  Orozbakov  describes  the  giant,  Malgun,  who 
guards  the  entry  to  China.  No  doubt  he  comes  from  ancient  legend, 
and  the  poet,  who  is  sufficiently  modern  and  aware  of  the  difficul- 
ties, does  his  best  with  him  : 

Only  Malgun  remained  far  off, 
Suspicions  crept  into  his  soul. 
Like  a  hillock  is  his  head, 
Like  a  house  is  his  club, 
Like  thunder  he  coughs  ! 
Malgun  was  brought  hither 
From  the  city  of  the  giants. 
Like  walls  are  his  shoulders  ; 
In  the  words  of  human  speech 
He  has  been  taught  by  many  khans. 
They  have  placed  him  on  guard, 
Bullets  do  not  pierce  him ; 

1  Ibid.  1518-19.  *  Orlov,  p.  31. 


HEROIC  POETRY 

An  iron  cuirass  is  on  his  body, 

They  have  clothed  him  in  a  coat  of  steel ! 

The  first  on  guard  is  Malgun, 

A  renowned  sentry  is  Malgun.1 

Compared  with  the  Kazak  monster,  Malgun  is  a  little  prosaic  and 
ordinary,  since  Orozbakov  is  so  eager  to  fit  him  into  a  human 
scheme  of  things  that  he  has  been  economical  in  mentioning  his 
monstrous  characteristics.  None  the  less  he  remains  a  formidable 
and  unusual  creature,  and  we  are  naturally  interested  to  hear  how 
the  Kara- Kirghiz  heroes,  who  rely  on  force  of  arms  and  skill  of 
hand  to  deal  with  their  enemies,  will  treat  him.  The  attack  lasts 
for  six  days,  and  even  the  great  Alaman  Bet  is  unable  to  pierce 
with  his  spear  into  the  giant's  defences,  since  every  stroke  is 
countered  by  his  enormous  club.  Malgun's  only  weak  point  is 
his  neck,  since  this  is  not  protected,  and  for  this  Alaman  Bet  and 
young  Syrgak  eventually  go,  with  the  result  that  they  cut  it  through 
with  a  sword.  Orozbakov  gives  reality  to  Malgun  by  the  fight 
with  him,  in  which  good  blows  are  given  on  both  sides  and  in  the 
end  skill  triumphs  over  magical  defences.  Malgun  has  his  place 
in  the  story  because  he  represents  the  supernatural  guards  which 
the  Chinese  use  to  defend  their  lands,  but  he  is  rightly  defeated 
by  purely  human  strength,  since  anything  else  would  be  below  the 
level  of  the  Kara-Kirghiz.  To  stress  this  little  lesson  the  poet  takes 
care  to  make  Malgun  a  formidable  monster. 

When  a  Yakut  poet  sets  out  to  describe  a  demon,  he  works 
in  rather  different  circumstances,  since  the  audience  believe  in 
demons  and  accord  them  an  important  position  in  their  religious 
beliefs.  No  doubt  he  draws  upon  current  views  and  trusts  that 
his  picture  will  be  accepted  as  convincing.  The  result  is  certainly 
precise : 

He  had  a  single  black  leg, 

Which  grew  like  a  pillar  of  bone  ; 

His  huge  crafty  arm 

Grew  from  his  breast-bone. 

He  had  only  one  eye 

In  the  middle  of  his  forehead, 

Like  a  frozen  pond. 

The  bridge  of  his  nose  was  huge 

As  the  back-bone  of  a  lean  ox. 

His  full  beard  resembled 

An  old  breast-covering  of  bear-skin. 

In  the  middle  of  his  mouth 

Gaped  something  like  a  gully, 

1  Manas,  p.  248  fF. 


THE  REALISTIC  BACKGROUND 

And  there  stood  out  six  huge  green  teeth, 
Each  enormous  as  an  axe, 
And  a  dark  tongue 
Like  a  green  spleen.1 

Since  the  Yakuts  believe  in  demons,  the  poet  makes  his  monster 
conform  to  their  fears. 

In  this  respect  Homer  too  is  an  exception  to  the  general 
rule.  He  has  not  many  monsters,  but  such  as  he  has  he  deals  with 
in  his  own  way.  He  has  the  clear  Greek  vision  of  visible  things  and 
does  not  traffic  in  the  vague  or  the  indefinite.  He  essays  the 
difficult  task  of  presenting  monsters  vividly  to  the  eye  and  tries 
to  make  them  look  real.  Sometimes  he  calls  up  a  terrible 
appearance  in  the  fewest  possible  words  and  leaves  it  at  that,  as 
when  the  Chimaera,  killed  by  Bellerophon,  with  its  hybrid  nature 
and  fiery  breath,  is  dismissed  in  two  lines  : 

Lion  in  front,  with  the  back  part  a  snake,  and  a  goat  in  the  middle, 
Breathing  the  terrible  breath  of  fire  irresistibly  flaming.2 

The  matter  is  dispatched  so  quickly  that  we  have  no  time  to  suspect 
absurdity  or  to  ask  more  precisely  what  such  a  creature  looks  like. 
So  too  when  Odysseus'  companions  encounter  a  giantess  among 
the  Laestrygonians,  she  is  left  impressively  vague  : 

There  was  a  woman  as  big  as  a  mountain,  and  greatly  they  loathed 
her.3 

No  more  needs  to  be  said,  since  the  whole  effect  of  appalling  size 
is  conveyed  by  the  loathing  felt  by  the  men  for  the  giantess. 
Scylla  is  less  tractable.  She  is  related  to  sea-monsters,  and  any 
account  of  her  must  appeal  to  a  love  of  sea-yarns  and  their  terrors. 
So  Homer  takes  a  big  risk  when  he  makes  Circe  describe  Scylla, 
who  barks  with  a  voice  as  loud  as  a  new-born  puppy's,  and  has 
twelve  feet,  and  twelve  necks,  on  each  of  which  is  a  head  with 
three  rows  of  thick  teeth  set  closely  together.4  Scylla  is  a  very 
advanced  version  of  a  polyp,  and  the  careful  enumeration  of  her 
limbs  suggests  a  kinship  with  the  giant  squids  and  krakens  of  sea- 
yarns.  The  Aegean  world  had  its  tales  of  sea-monsters  and  saw 
them  with  a  vivid  imagination,  as  Minoan  and  Mycenean  gems  and 
seals  show.5  Homer  may  have  learned  something  from  this  tradi- 
tion, and  here  he  does  his  best  to  use  it.  He  takes  a  great  risk,  but 
succeeds  in  surmounting  it  just  because  he  is  precise  and  exact. 
In  contrast  with  this  bold  experiment  we  may  set  Homer's 

1  Yastremski,  p.  27.  2  //.  vi,  181-2. 

3  Od.  x,  113.  4  Ibid,  xii,  85-94. 

5  H.  Dussaud,  Les  Civilisations  prthelleniques  (Paris,  i9H)»  P-  41?  #• 

177 


HEROIC  POETRY 

treatment  of  the  Cyclops,  Polyphemus.  He  is  a  one-eyed,  man- 
eating  giant,  and  the  subject,  though  popular  enough  in  legend  and 
folk-lore,  needs  tactful  handling.  Homer  attacks  the  difficulties 
with  confident  mastery,  and  depicts  the  monstrosity  of  Poly- 
phemus with  an  unwavering  grip  on  reality.  When  he  is  first  seen, 
he  is  sleeping  among  his  flocks  outside  his  cave : 

There  asleep  was  a  man,  gigantic,  who  used  to  look  after 
Flocks  far  away  from  the  others,  alone  ;  nor  used  he  to  mingle 
With  any  others,  but  lived  by  himself,  ferocious  and  lawless. 
He  was  a  monster,  enormous  in  bulk,  nor  did  he  resemble 
Men  who  live  upon  bread,  but  was  like  a  forested  headland 
Jutting  out  among  mountains,  and  seen  apart  from  the  others.1 

Polyphemus  is  undeniably  an  awful  creature,  who  acts  up  to  form 
when  he  eats  Odysseus'  comrades,  after  dashing  them  on  the  floor 
"  like  puppies  ".  He  has  no  friends  even  among  his  fellow 
Cyclops,  and  is  peculiarly  loathsome  when  he  falls  into  a  drunken 
sleep.  Yet  these  horrible  qualities  have  something  human  in 
them,  if  only  as  a  perversion  or  exaggeration  of  human  failings. 
Homer  even  makes  Polyphemus  almost  win  our  sympathy  when, 
after  his  one  eye  has  been  put  out,  he  addresses  his  ram  affec- 
tionately and  asks  it  why  it  no  longer  goes  first  from  the  cave  but 
lags  behind  the  flock.  Polyphemus  is  convincing  because  he  is, 
for  better  and  for  worse,  somehow  human.  What  might  have 
been  an  impersonal  ogre,  a  man-eating  monster  with  no  real 
identity,  becomes  a  primitive  pastoral  giant,  disgusting  and  bestial, 
but  at  times  almost  pathetic  and  always  convincing. 

Heroic  poetry,  then,  gives  verisimilitude  and  solidity  to  even 
its  most  improbable  themes,  partly  by  making  them  fit  into  a 
visible  world,  partly  by  relating  them  to  common  experience.  It 
enables  its  audiences  to  see  miraculous  events  and  monsters  and 
provokes  certain  feelings  about  them.  Such  episodes  create  an 
immediate,  vivid  impression,  and  there  is  no  doubt  about  what 
impression  the  poet  means  to  make.  He  is  able  to  do  this  because 
his  art  is  always  concerned  with  the  vivid  presentation  of  things 
and  events.  Just  because  he  is  accustomed  to  describing  armour 
and  houses  and  ships,  he  is  able  to  describe  other  matters  outside 
his  experience  but  not  beyond  his  imagination.  In  this  the  very 
simplicity  of  his  outlook  is  a  great  asset.  He  sees  things  from  a 
single  angle,  without  hesitations  or  qualifications,  and  is  able  to 
give  to  them  that  unity  of  impression  which  makes  them  real. 

1  Od.  ix,  187-92. 


V 
THE  MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE 

No  reader  of  heroic  poetry  can  fail  to  notice  that  it  abounds  in 
detailed  descriptions  of  actions  which  are  in  themselves  trivial, 
and  would  be  omitted  by  a  novelist  or  narrative-poet  working  in 
modern  conditions.  These  are  the  mechanics  of  narrative  and  are 
needed  to  keep  the  story  coherent  and  objective.  Without  them 
the  audience  might  fail  to  follow  what  happens  and  might  complain 
that  the  poet  does  not  do  his  job  properly.  But  these  passages  can 
be  made  attractive  and  illuminating  and  add  their  own  kind  of 
poetry  to  the  general  effect.  They  do  not  draw  too  much  attention 
to  themselves ;  they  are  not  show-pieces,  but  within  their  limita- 
tions they  can  have  an  unobtrusive  charm  and  increase  our  pleasure 
by  the  light  which  they  throw  on  the  characters  and  the  circum- 
stances of  their  lives.  Indeed  the  poets  often  go  beyond  the 
immediate  purpose  of  such  passages  and  give  some  new  turn  or 
unexpected  decoration  which  we  pause  to  enjoy.  The  different 
branches  of  heroic  poetry  all  employ  them  to  some  degree  and 
for  very  similar  purposes,  and  in  many  cases  what  might  be  the 
mere  mechanics  of  narrative  are  turned  to  a  genuinely  poetical 
end. 

First,  heroic  poetry  often  deals  with  arrivals  and  departures. 
The  entrances  and  exits  of  its  characters  are  usually  treated  with 
care  and  precision.  A  hero  comes  as  a  stranger  to  some  great 
house  and  is  welcomed  and  entertained,  but  the  manner  of  his 
arrival  may  illustrate  the  elaboration  of  heroic  manners  and  the 
way  in  which  great  men  treat  one  another.  Hospitality  and 
courtesy  are  heroic  virtues  and  must  be  displayed  even  when  they 
do  not  mean  very  much  for  the  story.  So  in  Beowulf  the  hero 
arrives  in  his  ship  with  his  company  at  a  foreigrf  sKbre.  They  are 
seen  by  a"^uard  who  rides  off  to  examine  them.  He  explains 
who  he  himself  is  and  what  his  duties  are,  asks  the  visitors  who 
they  are,  admits  that  they  are  plainly  no  common  folk,  and  urges 
them  to  comply  with  the  usual  formalities.  Beowulf  gives  a 
courteous  answer  and  explains  that  he  comes  on  an  errand  of 
friendship.  The  guard,  without  committing  himself  to  accepting 
all  that  Beowulf  says,  then  guides  the  party  to  Hrothgar's  hall, 

179 


HEROIC  POETRY 

where  Wulfgar  meets  them,  and  again  they  are  questioned.  This, 
it  seems,  is  the  correct  procedure  before  introducing  visitors  to 
the  king's  presence  : 

He  hied  then  in  haste      where  Hrothgar  sate, 

Old  and  hoary      amid  his  band  of  earls. 

He  stepped  forth,  strong-hearted,      till  he  stood  by  the  shoulders 

Of  the  Lord  of  the  Danes.     He  knew  the  law  of  the  doughty.1 

Once  in  the  presence  of  the  king,  Beowulf  establishes  his  identity 
and  position.  Hrothgar  recognises  him  as  a  friend  of  his  family 
and  makes  a  formal  speech  of  welcome.  He  sees  that  Beowulf  has 
come  to  help  him  and  offers  him  all  that  he  has.  In  this  arrival  and 
welcome  there  is  a  kind  of  ritual.  The  visitor  must  be  identified 
and  questioned,  and  then,  if  his  answers  prove  satisfactory,  he  is 
received  as  an  old  friend.  In  a  world  where  enemies  are  many, 
some  degree  of  caution  is  necessary,  but  it  does  not  prevent  the 
host  from  behaving  in  a  generous  and  princely  manner. 

In  Homer  there  are  many  cases  of  strangers  arriving  at  the 
courts  of  princes,  but  there  is  a  lack  of  such  precautions  as  are 
taken  in  Beowulfyas  if  the  Homeric  world  in  its  islands  and  isolated 
valleys  had  less  fear  of  sudden  incursions  by  enemies.  In  each 
case  much  the  same  routine  is  followed.  When  a  visitor  arrives, 
he  is  welcomed  by  his  host,  who  is  careful  at  first  not  to  ask  his 
name.  He  is  first  washed  and  fed ;  then  the  formalities  take 
place,  and  ties  are  found  between  the  guest  and  the  host.  This  is 
the  way  in  which  Telemachus  welcomes  Athene  when  she  comes 
in  disguise  to  Ithaca,2  and  Menelaus  welcomes  Telemachus  at 
Sparta.3  This  is  also  the  procedure  in  more  unusual  circum- 
stances. When  Odysseus  ventures  into  the  palace  of  Circe,  she 
does  not  ask  him  who  he  is  but  gives  him  a  drink  which  should 
turn  him  into  a  beast.  Then  the  ritual  goes  a  little  wrong. 
Odysseus  attacks  her  with  his  sword,  as  if  intending  to  kill  her, 
and  then  she  asks  him  who  he  is.4  The  familiar  frame  is  kept, 
even  if  the  proceedings  are  unusual.  Another  slight  variation  is 
made  with  Odysseus'  arrival  in  Phaeacia.  He  is  thrown  up  from 
the  sea  and  borrows  garments  from  the  king's  daughter,  Nausicaa, 
who  guides  him  to  the  palace  but  modestly  leaves  him  to  make  his 
own  entry.  He  walks  straight  in  and  kneels  before  the  queen  in 
supplication.5  Despite  the  unusual  circumstances,  she  behaves 
with  perfect  correctness.  Odysseus  is  washed  and  fed,  and  then 
the  questions  come.  This  is  of  course  a  special  case  and  receives 
rather  more  than  the  usual  treatment.  But  it  shows  how  Homer 

1  Beowulf,  356-9.  2  Od.  i,  103  ff.  3  Ibid,  iv,  20  ff. 

4  Ibid,  x,  312  ff.  5  Ibid,  vii,  139  ff. 

180 


THE  MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE 

sees  the  human  side  of  such  an  occasion  and  uses  it  to  illustrate 
the  personalities  of  his  characters. 

Kara-Kirghiz  poets  resemble  Beowulf  and  Homer  in  their 
careful  account  of  heroic  arrivals.  In  one  poem  Alaman  Bet 
comes  to  the  dwelling  of  the  great  Manas.  A  guard  questions  him 
courteously  but  firmly,  and  Alaman  Bet  replies  in  the  same  tone 
without  revealing  who  he  is  : 

"  I  seek  nothing,  I  am  a  traveller, 

I  ask  now  about  my  way, 

I  come  here  from  a  land  of  princes, 

Let  word  go  to  thy  master, 

I  come  here  from  a  land  of  princes, 

Let  word  go  to  thy  master."  1 

The  guard  admits  Alaman  Bet  to  Manas'  presence,  and  Manas 
asks  him  who  he  is.  Alaman  Bet  replies  at  length  with  a  family 
history,  and  at  the  end  of  it  reveals  his  name.  The  effect  on  Manas 
is  immediate.  He  answers  shortly  : 

"  If  you  are  the  son  of  Kara  Khan, 
If  you  are  the  hero  Alaman  Bet, 
Now  give  me  your  hand."  2 

The  guest  is  welcomed  as  a  friend,  and  Manas  spares  nothing  to 
make  him  at  home  and  to  load  him  with  gifts.  Just  as  the  Homeric 
heroes  are  feasted  after  arrival,  so  is  Alaman  Bet,  for  whom 
Manas  himself  orders  refreshment  in  the  usual  Kara- Kirghiz 
style  : 

"  Put  the  kettle  quickly  on  the  fire, 

Then  put  fresh  cream  into  it, 

And  sugar  in  it  also, 

And  get  good  tea  ready  for  us. 

Put  it  before  Alaman  Bet ! 

Let  him  put  hot  food  in  his  mouth 

And  have  something  to  feast  his  eyes."  3 

This  is  indeed  a  special  occasion,  since  it  is  the  beginning  of  the 
great  and  lasting  friendship  between  Manas  and  Alaman  Bet,  but 
the  poet  uses  for  it  the  machinery  which  the  Kara- Kirghiz  use  for 
all  arrivals  of  strangers.  None  the  less  what  might  be  quite 
insignificant  gathers  dignity  and  interest  from  the  context  in 
which  it  is  set. 

Not  all  arrivals  are  as  simple  as  this.    A  hero,  however  great, 

may  arrive  in  such  a  condition  that  his  prospective  host  or  hostess  is 

troubled  and  hardly  knows  what  to  do  about  him.    The  poet  has 

then  to  recast  the  traditional  technique  to  meet  such  a  disturbance 

1  Radlov,  v,  p.  55.  z  Idem,  p.  57.  3  Idem,  p.  57. 

181 


HEROIC  POETRY 

in  the  usual  routine.  So,  when  Gilgamish,  on  his  journey  to 
the  end  of  the  world,  comes  to  the  home  of  Siduri,  the  wine- 
maker,  she  sees  him  coming  and  is  thoroughly  alarmed  by  his 
weather-beaten,  haggard  appearance : 

The  wine-maker  looked  in  the  distance  ; 

She  took  thought  with  herself  and  said  : 

"  This  is  one  who  would  ravish  a  woman. 

Whither  does  he  advance  ?  .  .  ." 

As  soon  as  the  wine-maker  saw  him,  she  barred  the  postern, 

She  barred  her  inner  door,  she  barred  her  chamber. 

Gilgamish  hears  the  noise  and  speaks  to  her,  asking  why  she  has 
shut  the  door,  and  she  answers  : 

"  Why  is  thy  vigour  wasted,  thy  countenance  fallen  ? 

Thy  spirit  sunken,  thy  cheerfulness  gone  ? 

There  is  sorrow  in  thy  belly, 

Thy  face  is  of  one  who  has  gone  a  far  journey, 

With  cold  and  heat  is  thy  face  weathered."  l 

Gilgamish  does  his  best  to  ease  her  misgivings  by  telling  her 
something  of  his  story.  He  explains  that  his  woebegone  air  comes 
not  from  his  journey  but  from  the  death  of  Enkidu,  of  whom  he 
speaks  in  moving  words  at  some  length,  thus  telling  her  of  his 
quest  for  immortality.  She  takes  up  the  subject  with  zest  and 
puts  to  him  her  own  philosophy  of  living  for  pleasure  and  the 
passing  moment.  The  episode  has  an  almost  metaphysical 
importance  in  the  story  of  Gilgamish,  but  is  introduced  by  an 
ingenious  variation  on  the  familiar  theme  of  a  hero's  arrival. 

There  are  of  course  times  when  heroes  meet  with  anything  but 
a  courteous  reception,  but  even  then-  the  poets  tend  to  observe 
something  of  the  familiar  pattern,  though  they  vary  it  to  suit  the 
changed  circumstances,  as  Homer  does  in  his  account  of  Odysseus 
and  the  Cyclops.  Odysseus  comes  uninvited  into  the  Cyclops* 
cave,  when  its  owner  is  out  with  the  flocks.  When  he  returns,  he 
asks  the  usual  questions  —  who  are  his  visitors,  where  do  they 
come  from,  where  is  their  ship.  He  asks  them  rudely  and  suggests 
that  the  visitors  are  pirates.  This  justifies  Odysseus  in  answering 
as  he  does.  He  says,  truly,  that  he  comes  from  Troy,  but,  suspect- 
ing the  Cyclops'  intentions,  says  untruly  that  his  ship  has  been 
wrecked.  He  does  not  yet  say  who  he  is,  since  convention  demands 
that  that  should  wait  until  he  has  eaten.  Instead  of  offering  his 
visitors  food  the  Cyclops  eats  two  of  them,  and  then,  according  to 
pattern,  asks  Odysseus  who  he  is.  Odysseus  follows  the  rules  and 

1  Gilgamish,  x,  i,  15  ff. 

182 


THE  MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE 

answers,  but  again  untruthfully,  that  his  name  is  "  No-man  ",  a 
piece  of  deception  which  stands  him  in  good  stead  later.  Finally, 
it  is  customary  for  hosts  to  give  gifts  to  their  guests,  and  Odysseus 
hopes  for  one  from  the  Cyclops.  The  theme  is  nicely  developed 
and  reaches  its  climax  when  the  Cyclops,  beginning  to  get  drunk 
on  the  excellent  wine  which  Odysseus  has  brought,  says  : 

"  I  shall  eat  No-man  the  last,  when  the  rest  of  the  company's 

finished, 
After  I've  eaten  the  others,  and  this  is  the  gift  I  shall  give  you."  1 

In  this  episode  the  traditional  elements  are  present,  but  put  to  a 
new  purpose  to  suit  the  brutal  character  of  the  Cyclops. 

In  another  passage  Homer  adapts  the  traditional  theme  quite 
differently  but  with  no  less  success.  When  Priam  goes  to  ransom 
the  body  of  Hector  from  Achilles,  he  faces  great  danger.  Achilles 
is  the  deadly  enemy  of  Priam's  house,  and  the  old  man  goes  alone 
to  him.  He  walks  straight  into  the  tent,  where  Achilles,  who  has 
just  eaten  after  his  long  fast,  is  with  two  companions.  He  does  not 
see  Priam  come  in  : 

And  Priam  entering  unperceiv'd  till  he  well  was  among  them, 

Clasp 'd  his  knees  and  seized  his  hands  all  humbly  to  kiss  them, 

Those  dread  murderous  hands  which  his  sons  so  many  had  slain. 

As  when  a  man  whom  spite  of  fate  hath  curs'd  in  his  own  land 

For  homicide,  that  he  fleeth  abroad  and  seeketh  asylum 

With  some  lord,  and  they  that  see  him  are  fill'd  with  amazement. 

Ev'n  so  now  Achilles  was  amaz'd  as  he  saw  Priam  enter, 

And  the  men  all  were  amaz'd  and  lookt  upon  each  other  in  turn.2 

Both  Priam  and  Achilles  know  who  the  other  is,  and  there  is  no 
need  for  questions  about  names.  Moreover,  Priam  comes  on  a  very 
special  and  dangerous  errand.  So  he  does  the  wisest  and  safest 
thing  in  taking  up  the  position  of  a  suppliant,  which  entitles  him 
to  certain  rights  of  sanctuary.  He  at  once  declares  the  nature  of 
his  errand,  and  Achilles  is  moved  by  the  old  man's  pathos  and  in 
due  course  agrees  to  yield  Hector's  body.  All  this  is  unusual  and 
outside  the  conventional  course.  But  once  the  agreement  about 
the  body  has  been  reached,  convention  asserts  itself.  Achilles 
insists  that  his  guest  shall  have  supper  and  spend  the  night  in  his 
quarters.  Even  in  these  conditions  the  heroic  code  of  manners  is 
maintained. 

jHpepartures  are  no  less  decorous  than  arrivals  and  are  treated 
with  the  same  degree  of  detail.  Beowulf  presents  a  pattern  which 
may  be  paralleled  elsewhere.  When  Beowulf  leaves  Hrothgar,  the 

1  Od.  ix,  369-70.  2  //.  xxiv,  477-84.     Trs.  Robert  Bridges. 

183  N 


HEROIC  POETRY 

episode  is  treated  at  some  length.  First  speeches  are  interchanged, 
Beowulf  speaking  first  and  saying  how  ready  he  is  to  return  at  any 
time  when  he  is  needed,  and  Hrothgar  declaring  his  affection  for 
Beowulf.  Next,  handsome  gifts  are  presented,  and  the  friends 
part  : 

Kissed  then      the  King  well-born, 
Baron  of  Shieldings,      that  best  of  thegns, 
And  clasped  his  neck  ;      coursed  his  tears, 
That  hoary  beard.      Both  things  he  looked  for, 
Ancient  and  old,      but  one  thing  rather, 
That,  some  time,  each      might  see  the  other, 
Proud  minds  in  a  meeting.1 

Beowulf  and  his  party  then  proceed  to  their  ship  and  are  greeted 
by  the  same  guard  who  challenged  them  on  their  arrival.  Beowulf 
gives  a  gold-mounted  sword  to  the  man  who  watches  over  the  ship, 
goes  aboard,  and  sails  off.  It  is  an  elaborate  ceremony  in  which 
each  stage  is  traditional  and  correct  but  hasjalso  its  human  interest, 
whether  in  Hrothgar's  genuine  affection  for  Beowulf,  or  Beowulf's 
noless  genuine  desire  to  help  him, "or  the  delight  which  Beowulf's 
company  take  In  their  gifts,  or  the  courtesy  of  the  guard.  In  a  sense 
the  whole  episode  is  unnecessary  for  the  story.  Beowulf  has  killed 
the  monsters,  and  there  is  nothing  left  for  him  but  to  go  home. 
The  poet  might  have  dismissed  him  in  a  few  lines,  but  he  has  good 
reasons  for  preferring  an  expansive  manner.  It  gives  a  dignified 
close  to  the  adventures  which  have  taken  place  and  enables  him 
to  stress  certain  points  about  the  way  in  which  heroes  behave.  7 

Homer  uses  a  not  dissimilar  pattern  for  the  departures  of  his 
heroes.  It  consists  of  the  presentation  of  gifts,  the  delivery  of 
speeches,  the  pouring  of  libations,  and  the  provision  of  transport. 
When  Telemachus  leaves  Sparta,  Menelaus  offers  to  give  him  a 
silver  bowl  with  gold  edges  and  a  chariot  with  three  horses.2 
When  Odysseus  leaves  Phaeacia,  he  is  loaded  with  rich  gifts  and 
put  on  a  miraculous  ship  which  goes  its  own  way  without  sails  or 
oars.3  Just  as  Menelaus  makes  a  farewell  speech  and  pours  a 
libation  to  the  gods,  so  Alcinous  makes  a  speech  in  which  he  asks 
his  companions  to  make  a  last  contribution  of  gifts  and  performs  a 
sacrifice  and  a  libation  to  Zeus.  When  the  formalities  are  con- 
cluded, the  actual  departure  is  made  quickly.  Telemachus  whips 
up  his  horses ;  Odysseus  wraps  himself  up  on  board  and  goes  to 
sleep.  The  general  pattern  is  the  same,  but  Homer  introduces 
small  differences  which  illustrate  the  idiosyncrasies  of  his  char- 
acters. While  Telemachus  is  modest  about  both  gifts  and  trans- 

1   Beowulf,  1870-76.  2  Od.  iv,  589  ff.,  615  ff. 

3  Ibid,  xiii,  8  ff.,  81  ff. 

184 


THE  MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE 

port,  Odysseus  shows  no  such  restraint,  and  while  Menelaus  is  the 
old  family  friend,  Alcinous  is  a  little  ostentatious  and  pleased  with 
himself  for  treating  his  guest  so  well.  So  too  with  their  wives. 
While  Arete  provides  Odysseus  with  homely  necessities  like  food 
and  wine,  Helen  interprets  omens  to  mean  that  all  will  soon  be  well 
in  Ithaca  and  the  Suitors  destroyed.  In  both  cases  unimportant 
occasions  are  enriched  with  significant  details,  and  the  heroes  are 
sent  on  their  way  in  proper  style. 

In  these  cases  the  hero  is  simply  going  home.  When  he  sets 
out  from  home  on  some  perilous  quest,  a  somewhat  different 
technique  is  used.  On  such  occasions  prayers  and  good  wishes  are 
needed,  and  the  poets  do  not  omit  them.  So  when  Priam  prepares 
to  ransom  the  body  of  Hector  from  Achilles,  he  is  told  by  his  wife, 
Hecuba,  to  pour  a  libation  to  Zeus  before  he  starts.  He  does  this 
in  due  form  and  utters  a  prayer  with  it.1  When  Gilgamish  and 
Enkidu  depart  to  destroy  the  ogre  Humbaba,  they  are  seen  off  by 
the  elders  of  Erech,  who  give  them  advice  and  a  blessing,  and  then 
Gilgamish  offers  up  a  prayer  to  Shamash : 

"  Here  I  present  myself,  Shamash, 

And  lift  up  my  hands  ; 

Grant  that  my  life  may  be  spared  hereafter, 

Bring  me  back  again  to  the  ramparts  of  Erech, 

Spread  thy  shield  above  me."  2 

Before  the  Yakut  heroes  proceed  on  their  adventures,  they  go  down 
on  their  knees  before  the  fire  on  the  hearth  and  pray  to  the  spirit 
of  fire,  asking  for  help  in  the  struggles  which  lie  ahead.  If  the 
heroes  do  not  offer  up  these  prayers  for  themselves,  their  kinsfolk 
do  so  for  them.3  Even  in  the  short  scope  of  the  Edda  poems  there 
is  still  room  for  such  a  rite.  When  Gunnar  and  his  companions 
set  out  to  visit  Atli,  they  go  with  evil  omens  and  dark  forebodings, 
but  Hogni's  wife,  Kostbera,  maintains  the  heroic  form,  when  she 
bids  them  farewell : 

"  May  ye  sail  now  happy,      and  victory  have  ; 

To  fare  well  I  bid  ye,      may  nought  your  way  bar  !  "4 

The  Yakuts  provide  a  more  elaborate  formula  for  the  parents  of  any 
hero  to  say  before  he  sets  out : 

"  Bear  yourself  in  front  with  protection  like  a  rock 

From  a  powerful  blessing  on  your  soul, 

Burning  with  flame,  and  go  your  way. 

Bear  yourself  behind  with  the  support 

Of  a  powerful  blessing  from  home  on  your  soul."  s 

1  Ibid,  xxiv,  287  ff.,  302  ff.  2  Gilgamish,  in,  vi,  36-40. 

3  Yastremski,  p.  3.  4  Atlamdl,  31.  s  Yastremski,  p.  4. 

185 


HEROIC  POETRY 

However  dark  the  prospects  may  be,  the  heroic  system  demands 
that  they  be  faced  with  courage  and  confidence,  and  departing 
heroes  must  start  on  their  quests  with  the  air  of  going  to  victory. 

A  second  piece  of  mechanism  is  concerned  with  a  hero's  rising 
in  the  morning.  When  he  gets  up,  details  are  given  which  show 
how  he  pursues  the  ordinary  routine  of  life.  It  is  part  of  his 
human  condition,  of  his  likeness  to  other  men.  Russian  poets  like 
to  describe  how  a  hero  rises  from  sleep  and  tend  to  do  so  in  a  stock 
way,  as  for  Alyosha  Popovich  : 

Alyosha  woke  from  sleep, 
Got  up  early,  very,  very  early 
Washed  himself  at  break  of  day, 
Dried  himself  with  a  white  towel, 
And  turned  to  the  east  to  pray  to  God.1 

So  in  her  Tale  of  Lenin  Marfa  Kryukova  tells  that,  when  the  hero 
comes  out  of  hiding  to  control  the  Revolution,  he  starts  his  day 
like  any  ancient  bogatyr  : 

On  a  morning  it  was,  on  an  early  morning, 

At  the  rising  of  the  fair  red  sun, 

That  Ilich  stepped  out  of  his  little  tent, 

He  washed  his  face 

With  cold  spring  water, 

He  wiped  his  face  with  a  little  towel.2 

Lenin,  as  we  might  expect,  does  not  say  morning  prayers,  but 
otherwise  his  rising  is  very  like  Alyosha's,  and  in  both  cases  the 
poet  uses  this  device  to  start  an  adventurous  story  in  as  natural  a 
way  as  possible.  In  essence  this  is  akin  to  Homer's  art.  When 
Telemachus  has  to  face  the  elders  of  Ithaca  with  a  grave  decision 
about  the  Suitors,  he  begins  his  day  in  a  quiet,  customary  manner  : 

But  when  the  Daughter  of  Dawn  stretched  forth  her  roseate  fingers, 
Then  from  his  slumber  arose  the  beloved  son  of  Odysseus, 
Speedily  put  on  his  clothes  and  fastened  a  sword  from  his  shoulder, 
And  on  his  gleaming  feet  he  bound  his  beautiful  sandals.3 

It  is  all  very  ordinary  and  commonplace,  but  has  its  own  charm  in 
the  narrative. 

Parallel  to  the  scenes  of  getting  up  are  those  of  going  to  bed, 
which  provide  a  note  of  rest  and  quiet  after  an  eventful  day.  Homer 
often  describes  how  his  heroes  rest  after  battle  or  travel,  as  when 
Telemachus  and  Peisistratus  stay  with  Menelaus  and  are  guided 
to  their  beds  on  the  verandah  by  slaves  with  torches.3  Even  more 
domestic  is  the  account  of  Telemachus  on  Ithaca  when,  after  an 
exciting  day,  the  old  slave  Euryclea  lights  him  to  his  bedroom  : 

1  Kireevski,  ii,  p.  71.  *  Kaun,  p.  188.  3  Od.  iv,  296  ff. 

186 


THE  MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE 

Then  did  he  open  the  door  himself  of  his  well-fashioned  chamber, 
Sat  on  the  side  of  the  bed  and  took  off  his  soft  woollen  garment, 
And  then  into  the  hands  of  the  wise  old  woman  he  gave  it. 
She  then,  when  she  had  brushed  and  neatly  folded  the  garment, 
Put  it  to  hang  on  a  peg  at  the  side  of  the  well-fretted  bedstead, 
Quietly  went  from  the  room  and  pulled  the  door  by  the  handle 
Shaped  as  a  ring,  and  then  with  the  thong  she  drew  the  bolt 

forward. 
Wrapped  there  all  night  long  in  his  fleecy  sheepskin  he  slumbered.1 

There  is  little  essential  difference  between  this  and  the  sleep 
which  Beowulf  enjoys  after  vanquishing  Grendel.  He  too  is 
conducted  to  his  room  by  a  retainer  and  takes  his  rest  with  delight : 

Before  all  things  the  Geat, 
Rough  shield-warrior,     for  rest  was  longing  ; 
Weary  of  his  swimming,      swiftly  the  hall-thegn 
Guided  him  forth,      who  was  come  from  far  ; 
He  that  worshipfully      watched  over  all 
The  needs  of  a  thegn,      such  things  as  in  those  clays 
Sea-wanderers      might  be  wanting. 
Rested  him  then,  roomy-hearted  ;      the  roof  towered, 
Gaping  and  gold-decked  ;      the  guest  within  slept, 
Until  the  black  raven      of  heaven's  blessings 
Boded,  blithe-hearted.2 

The  elaborate  style  hides  to  some  degree  the  simplicity  of  the 
action  which  the  poet  describes,  but  his  art  is  of  the  same  kind  as 
Homer's  in  its  attention  to  tranquil,  domestic  details. 

Sometimes,  if  the  theme  of  going  to  bed  is  a  preliminary  to 
some  fearful  event,  a  contrast  is  made  between  the  usual  routine  of 
night  and  what  comes  after  it.  A  nice  variation  comes  in  Beowulf 
before  the  fight  with  Grendel.  Beowulf  knows  what  awaits  him 
in  the  night  and  is  ready  to  face  the  monster,  but,  contrary  to 
expectation,  he  does  not  keep  his  armour  on  but  undresses  almost 
as  if  he  were  going  to  bed  : 

However  the  Geats'  prince      gladly  trusted 
In  his  moody  might,      in  his  Maker's  Mercy. 
Then  he  did  off      his  iron  byrny, 
His  helm  from  his  head,      gave  his  hiked  sword, 
Choicest  of  irons,      to  his  armour-bearer, 
And  bade  him  hold      the  battle-harness.3 

He  explains  that  he  does  this  for  reasons  of  heroic  pride,  that, 
since  he  considers  himself  every  whit  as  good  as  Grendel,  he  will 
fight  him  without  weapons  in  his  own  way.  Then  he  proceeds  to 
go  to  sleep  : 

1  Ibid,  i,  436-43.  2  Beowulf,  1792-1802.  3  Ibid.  669-74. 

187 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Laid  him  down  then  the  Champion,      a  cheek-bolster  took 
The  face  of  the  earl.1 

The  structure  of  this  small  episode  is  based  on  the  familiar  way  in 
which  a  hero  goes  to  sleep,  but  it  receives  a  new  character  through 
the  unusual  considerations  which  prompt  his  action  and  the 
conditions  which  force  him  to  it.  Conversely,  the  imminence  of 
disaster  may  interfere  with  the  ordinary  routine  of  rest.]  When 
Charlemagne  has  left  Roland  to  fight  in  the  Pass,  he  bivouacs  his 
army  and  prepares  himself  for  sleep.  But  he  feels  that  something 
is  amiss,  and  does  not  undress : 

That  Emperour  is  lying  in  a  mead  ; 

By's  head,  so  brave,  he's  placed  his  mighty  spear ; 

On  such  a  night  unarmed  he  will  not  be. 

He's  donned  his  white  hauberk,  with  broidery, 

Has  laced  his  helm,  jewelled  with  golden  beads, 

Girt  on  Joiuse,  there  never  was  its  peer, 

Whereon  each  day  thirty  fresh  hues  appear.2 

Charlemagne  is  full  of  fears  about  Roland,  and,  even  when  he  falls 
asleep,  he  has  troubling  dreams.  In  this  case  the  ordinary  theme  is 
reversed.  The  hero  sleeps  in  his  clothes  and  even  keeps  his  armour 
on,  a  touch  which  is  the  more  effective  because  it  provides  a 
contrast  to  the  standard  passages  in  which  he  goes  to  sleep  in  the 
ordinary  way. 

Closely  related  to  accounts  of  rising  and  going  to  bed  are  those 
of  a  hero  or  heroine  dressing.  This  is  often  enough  quite  unim- 
portant, but  it  may  be  used  for  a  significant  purpose,  especially  to 
show  how  clothes  betray  the  character  of  their  owner.  How  well 
the  apparel  can  proclaim  the  man  can  be  seen  from  the  way  in 
which  Marko  Kraljevic,  after  deciding  that  he  must  get  married, 
puts  on  all  his  finery  : 

Marko  then  put  on  his  cloth  of  velvet, 

On  his  head  a  silver-crested  kalpak, 

On  his  legs  his  breeches,  clasps  upon  them, 

And  each  clasp  was  worth  a  golden  ducat ; 

And  he  girded  on  his  inlaid  sabre, 

To  the  ground  hung  down  its  golden  tassels, 

And  a  sheath  of  gold  contained  that  sabre, 

Sharp  of  blade  it  was  and  sweet  to  handle  ; 

And  his  servants  brought  to  him  his  charger, 

And  they  set  on  it  a  gilded  saddle  ; 

To  its  hoofs  fell  down  the  horse's  trappings  ; 

Over  it  they  put  a  dappled  lynx-skin, 

With  a  bridle  made  of  steel  they  curbed  it.3 

1  Beowulf,  688-9.  2  Roland,  2496-511.  3  Karadzic,  ii,  p.  205. 

188 


THE  MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE 

This  is  not  only  picturesque  and  delightful  but  illuminates  Marko's 
character  and  the  gay  spirit  in  which  he  goes  to  seek  a  bride.  As  a 
counterpart  we  may  quote  the  Kara- Kirghiz  account  of  how  Ak 
Erkach,  the  wife  of  an  Uigur  prince,  sees  the  hero  Alaman  Bet 
riding  towards  her  house  and  prepares  to  greet  him  : 

Her  beautifully  decked  head-dress 

She  set  upon  her  head. 

To  the  right  her  hair  she  parted, 

On  the  right  side  she  arranged  it. 

To  the  left  her  hair  she  parted, 

On  the  left  side  she  arranged  it. 

Her  thick  snood  of  gold 

She  fixed  to  the  end  of  the  moon  ; 

Her  thick  snood  of  silver 

She  fixed  to  the  end  of  the  sun. 

Like  a  puppy  she  whimpered  ; 

She  showed  her  teeth  in  laughter, 

With  her  breath  she  shed  fragrance. 

She  frisked  like  a  little  lamb  ; 

Her  ringlets  fell  to  her  shoulders.1 

Ak  Erkach  is  hardly  a  heroine,  but  she  moves  in  a  heroic  world  and 
behaves  as  such  a  woman  should.  Her  action  is  a  tribute  to  the 
kind  of  men  with  whom  she  consorts.  The  poet  enjoys  not  only 
the  refinements  of  her  toilet  with  its  elaborate  coiffure  and  its 
ornaments  shaped  like  the  sun  and  the  moon  but  makes  it  reveal 
her  character  and  provide  an  amusing  contrast  to  the  formidable 
hero  whom  she  hopes  to  impress. 

Of  course  feminine  toilet  is  more  adapted  than  masculine  to 
varied  treatment,  and  in  developing  the  familiar  theme  a  poet  may 
allow  himself  considerable  liberty.  What  is  applicable  to  a  mere 
woman  is  still  more  applicable  to  a  goddess,  since  she  may  be 
expected  to  display  her  graces  on  a  more  formidable  scale.  This  is 
what  Homer  does  with  Hera.  She  wishes  to  entice  her  husband, 
Zeus,  from  Mount  Ida  where  he  is  watching  the  battle  and  inter- 
fering with  her  plans  for  its  progress.  So  in  a  purposeful  and 
crafty  spirit  she  plots  to  use  all  her  charms  on  him.  Homer  takes 
up  the  traditional  theme  of  dressing,  uses  its  full  resources,  and 
makes  a  great  show  with  them.  Though  Hera's  toilet  might  occur 
almost  anywhere  in  the  Iliad  as  part  of  its  machinery,  it  receives 
careful  attention  here  because  it  is  important  for  the  plot.  She 
first  washes  her  skin  with  ambrosia  and  anoints  it  with  a  sweet  oil 
which,  if  it  is  so  much  as  shaken,  sends  its  scent  to  heaven  and 
earth.  She  then  does  her  hair,  tying  it  in  plaits,  and  afterwards  puts 

1  Radlov,  v,  p.  37. 

189 


HEROIC  POETRY 

on  a  garment,  made  by  Athene  and  embroidered  with  many 
patterns,  and  fastens  it  with  golden  pins  and  a  girdle  with  golden 
tassels.  She  puts  on  ear-rings,  each  of  which  has  three  drops. 
When  she  has  finally  put  on  her  head-dress  and  her  sandals,  she 
is  ready  for  work.1  This  is  indeed  a  full-dress  occasion,  and 
Homer  makes  Hera's  toilet  as  magnificent  as  possible. 

The  theme  of  dress  may  also  be  adapted  to  the  needs  of  other 
special  occasions.  When  something  is  afoot,  the  poets  may  take 
care  to  show  how  their  characters  clothe  themselves,  since  this  is 
a  necessary  part  of  the  whole  effect.  For  instance,  in  Roland  when 
Ganelon  sets  out  to  the  Saracens  with  intent  to  betray  Roland,  he 
puts  on  all  his  finery  in  order  to  make  as  good  an  impression  as 
possible  : 

Guenes  the  count  goes  to  his  hostelry, 
Finds  for  his  road  his  garments  and  his  gear, 
All  of  the  best  he  takes  that  may  appear  : 
Spurs  of  fine  gold  he  fastens  on  his  feet, 
And  to  his  side  Murgles,  his  sword  of  steel. 
On  Tachebrun,  his  charger  next  he  leaps, 
His  uncle  holds  the  stirrup,  Guinemere.2 

Ganelon  is  on  a  fell  errand,  but  he  is  none  the  less  a  great  noble 
with  his  own  style  and  splendour.  Here  his  care  for  his  appearance 
serves  a  double  task.  In  the  first  place  it  is  a  kind  of  defiance  to 
Roland  and  others  who  have  derided  him  and  made  him  wish  to 
assert  his  pride,  and  in  the  second  place  he  goes  as  an  ambassador 
of  Charlemagne  and  must  be  worthy,  at  least  in  appearance,  of  his 
master.  Other  heroes  in  Roland  dress  themselves  in  the  same  way, 
but  special  attention  is  given  to  Ganelon  because  his  departure  is 
the  sign  for  an  important  development  in  the  story.  So  too  the 
poet  of  Gilgamish  more  than  once  insists  that  his  hero  is  cleansed 
and  clothed.  The  first  occasion  looks  simple  enough.  When 
Gilgamish  comes  back  from  the  slaying  of  Humbaba,  he  is  stained 
with  blood  and  removes  the  traces  of  the  fight : 

He  washes  his  stains, 

He  cleanses  his  tattered  garments, 

He  braids  his  hair  over  his  shoulders, 

He  lays  aside  his  dirty  garments, 

He  clothes  himself  in  clean  ones, 

He  puts  on  armlets, 

He  girds  his  body  with  a  baldric, 

Gilgamish  binds  his  fillet, 

He  girds  himself  with  a  baldric.3 

1  //.  xiv,  170-86.  2  Roland,  342-8. 

3  Gilgamish,  vi,  i,  1-5. 

190 


THE  MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE 

This  may  seem  a  merely  mechanical  interlude  to  mark  the  end  of  a 
bloody  episode.  But  it  is  more  than  that.  It  is  because  Gilgamish 
does  this,  that  the  goddess  Ishtar  realises  his  beauty  and  wishes 
him  to  be  her  husband,  and  from  that  much  follows.  Again,  later 
in  the  poem,  before  leaving  Uta-Napishtim  at  the  end  of  the  world, 
Gilgamish  is  bathed  and  given  fresh  clothing  : 

Ur-Shanabi  took  him, 

And  led  him  where  he  might  bathe  him. 

He  washed  his  stains  in  the  water  like  snow, 

He  put  off  his  pelts, 

And  the  sea  bore  them  away  ; 

Fair  did  his  body  appear  ; 

He  renewed  the  fillet  on  his  head, 

He  garbed  himself  in  a  mantle 

To  clothe  his  nakedness, 

Such  that  when  he  reached  his  city 

Or  finished  his  journey, 

The  mantle  would  not  betray  its  age 

But  keep  its  freshness.1 

This  too  has  a  definite  purpose.  Gilgamish  still  hopes  to  win 
immortality  and  still  has  a  chance  of  doing  so.  For  this  reason  it  is 
unfitting  that  he  should  be  unkempt  and  filthy  as  he  is  after  his 
long  journey  to  Uta-Napishtim.  So  the  poet  describes  in  detail 
the  cleansing  and  the  clothing  which  have  almost  a  ritual  signifi- 
cance and  are  relevant  to  his  main  theme. 

Heroic  poetry  naturally  abounds  in  accounts  of  warriors 
arming  themselves.  Such  are  necessary  to  keep  up  the  reality  of  a 
world  at  war  and  to  show  with  what  weapons  a  hero  fights.  The 
audience  knows  about  weapons  and  will  listen  attentively  to  any 
mention  of  them.  Homer  usually  describes  such  scenes  of  arming 
in  a  succinct  and  economical  way,  omitting  nothing  that  matters 
but  not  worrying  about  details.  When  he  lets  himself  go,  as  he 
does  with  the  shield  of  Achilles  or  on  a  lesser  scale  with  the  armour 
of  Agamemnon,  he  has  a  special  purpose  in  wishing  to  display  his 
hero's  might  through  his  accoutrements.  Sometimes  he  gives  the 
elementary  details  but  no  more,  as  a  necessary  preliminary  to  the 
record  of  some  action.  It  may  seem  unexciting  but  is  none  the  less 
needed,  especially  when  the  armour  belongs  to  some  important 
hero  like  Hector  or  Paris.  Other  poets  do  much  the  same  thing, 
and  are  not  afraid  of  introducing  passages  which  are  useful  pieces 
of  mechanism  but  little  more.  In  a  heroic  world  most  warriors 
use  the  same  arms,  and  the  variations  between  them  are  confined  to 
such  matters  as  size  and  weight  and  decoration.  If  a  warrior  likes 

1  Ibid,  xi,  i,  246-54. 
191 


HEROIC  POETRY 

something  out  of  the  way,  we  are  told  about  it,  and  a  special  point 
is  made  of  it.  But  ordinarily  much  is  taken  for  granted.  When 
descriptions  of  armour  are  needed,  they  are  provided,  but  not  too 
much  time  is  given  to  them. 

However,  when  the  hero  sets  out  on  an  unusual  errand,  the 
nature  of  his  arms  may  be  of  some  importance,  especially  when  he 
sets  out  to  fight  some  monster,  whose  habits  are  unfamiliar  to  the 
audience  and  arouse  curiosity  about  the  way  to  tackle  it.  I  So, 
when  Gilgamish  goes  to  fight  Humbaba,  his  townsmen  see  that  he 
is  properly  armed  : 

They  brought  monstrous  axes, 

Into  his  hand  they  gave  the  bow  and  the  quiver  ; 

He  took  a  celt  and  slung  on  his  quiver  ; 

He  took  another  celt  and  fastened  a  knife  to  his  girdle.1 

The  weapons  show  how  Gilgamish  starts  on  a  strange  quest. 
Although  in  fact  he  kills  Humbaba  less  by  his  own  weapons  than 
by  the  help  of  winds  sent  by  the  Sun-god,  yet  he  cuts  off  Hum- 
baba's  head  ;  so  his  arms,  though  not  so  effective  as  his  townsmen 
may  have  hoped,  are  not  entirely  useless.  yA  similar  technique 
may  be  seen  in  Beowulf.  When  the  hero  prepares  to  fight  GrendePs 
Dam,  he  does  not  rely,  as  with  Grendel  himself,  on  his  bare  hands 
but  arms  himself  carefully.  The  point  of  honour  which  prevented 
him  from  taking  on  an  unarmed  Grendel  with  weapons  no  longer 
operates,  since,  it  seems,  he  is  afraid  of  the  Dam's  hideous  grip  and 
arms  himself  against  it.  So  the  poet  describes  the  arming  at 
length  and  throws  in  a  comment  or  two  to  show  what  it  means  : 

He  would  in  his  war-byrny      braided  by  hand, 

Broad  and  broidcrcd  with  skill,       brave  the  deep  sound  ; 

Well  could  it  shelter      the  sheath  of  his  bones 

That  the  battle-grip      might  not  his  breast, 

Nor  the  angry  clutch      his  spirit  injure  ; 

But  the  white  helmet      his  head  warded, 

Which  on  the  mere's  floor      was  to  mingle, 

To  seek  the  sound's  tumult  —      with  treasure  made  worthy, 

With  fine  chains  compassed,      as  in  former  days 

The  weapon-smith  wrought  it,      with  wonders  adorned  it, 

Beset  it  with  swine-figures,      so  that  since  then  no 

Brand  nor  battle-blade      managed  to  bite  it.2 

Beowulf  puts  on  the  best  armour  that  he  can  find,  and  the  poet 
takes  pride  in  it.  But  even  this  armour  is  not  going  to  be  enough. 
His  helmet,  as  is  carefully  pointed  out,  will  fall  off  in  the  monster's 

1  Gilgamish,  ill,  vi,  10-13. 

2  Beowulf,  1443-54.     For  the  "  swine-figures  "  cf.  Klaeber,  Plate  3,  for  a 
helmet  from  Vendel,  Uppland,  made  at  the  close  of  the  seventh  century. 

192 


THE   MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE 

den,  and  the  sword  which  he  takes  with  him  will  prove  to  be  useless. 
The  old  theme  is  used  to  show  how  even  the  best  weapons  may  not 
be  sufficient  for  so  fierce  an  encounter  as  that  which  Beowulf 
faces.  \ 

Sometimes  the  clothes  or  the  armour  which  a  hero  puts  on  are 
connected  with  a  special  occasion  in  his  life  and  derive  additional 
interest  from  it.  In  the  Ainu  Kutune  Shirka  the  hero  has  led  a  very 
cloistered  life  until  he  hears  of  the  golden  otter.  One  night  he 
cannot  sleep  because  the  gods  keep  him  awake,  and  he  tosses  on 
his  bed.  It  is  still  dark,  and  his  brother  and  sister  are  snoring. 
Then  he  makes  his  decision  : 

Suddenly,  there  on  my  bed, 
I  stretched  myself,  and  at  one  hound 
I  was  up  on  my  feet. 
I  went  to  the  treasure- pile, 
I  fumbled  about  in  it 
And  pulled  out  a  basket, 
A  basket  finely-lacquered. 
The  eords  that  bound  it 
One  after  another  I  untied  ; 
I  tilted  off  the  cover. 
I  plunged  my  hand  into  the  basket ; 
An  embroidered  coat, 
A  graven  belt-sword, 
A  belt  clasped  with  gold, 
A  little  golden  helmet  — 
All  of  them  together 
1  tumbled  out. 
The  embroidered  coat 
I  thrust  myself  into, 
The  golden  clasped  belt 
I  wound  about  me. 
The  eords  of  the  little  helmet 
I  tied  for  myself, 
So  that  it  sat  firm  on  my  head. 
The  graven  sword 
I  thrust  through  my  belt. 
And  though  I  tell  it  of  myself, 
I  looked  splendid  as  a  god, 
Splendid  as  a  great  god 
Returning  in  glory. 
And  there  upon  the  mat, 
Though  I  had  never  seen  them, 
I  copied  deeds  of  battle,  deeds  of  war, 
Spreading  my  shoulders,  whirling  round 
and  round.1 

1  Trs.  Arthur  Waley,  Botteghe  Oscure,  vii  (1951),  pp.  217-18. 
193 


HEROIC  POETRY 

At  divine  prompting  the  young  hero  has  suddenly  found  himself 
and  his  calling.  Though  it  is  a  new  thing  for  him  to  put  on 
armour  or  make  use  of  it,  he  does  so  naturally  and  easily  and  knows 
exactly  what  he  is  doing.  Of  course  he  enjoys  the  process  and 
takes  pride  in  his  unaccustomed  accoutrements.  The  armour  itself 
has  nothing  unusual  about  it ;  what  matters  is  its  relevance  to  the 
occasion. 

Closely  allied  to  descriptions  of  dressing  and  arming  are  those 
of  heroes  who  disguise  themselves  or  have  their  appearance  in 
some  way  altered.  Here  too  the  poet  operates  on  an  accepted 
idea  of  what  a  hero's  dress  and  appearance  ought  to  be  and 
secures  his  effects  by  the  kind  of  change  which  something  may 
produce  in  it.  His  first  duty  is  to  explain  what  the  change  is  and 
what  results  it  produces.  When  he  has  done  that,  he  can  secure 
other  effects  which  are  less  essential  but  add  to  the  variety  of  the 
poetry.  This  may  be  done  shortly  and  swiftly,  if  the  poet  has  an 
eye  for  the  main  point.  When  Alaman  Bet  wishes  to  insinuate 
himself  into  the  household  of  the  sorceress  Kanyshai,  it  is  well  for 
him  to  be  disguised,  since,  if  he  appears  as  a  Kara- Kirghiz,  he  will 
be  killed  at  once.  He  reconnoitres  the  ground,  finds  a  watering- 
place  frequented  by  guards,  and  sees  at  it  one  of  them  filling  twelve 
ox-skins  with  water : 

Alaman  Bet  rose  in  front  of  him, 
Cut  off  his  head  in  a  moment, 
Threw  it  into  the  clear  stream, 
And  over  his  own  clothes  put 
The  clothes  of  that  guard  ; 
His  pig-tail,  like  a  stick, 
He  fastened  to  his  own  head. 
He  took  up  the  twelve  ox-skins 
Pilled  to  the  brim  with  water, 
Did  Alaman  Bet,  the  great  hero, 
And  went  straight  to  the  household 
Of  the  sorceress  giantess. J 

This  is  short  and  simple  but  decisive.  Alaman  Bet  is  sufficiently 
disguised  for  his  purpose  and  ready  for  the  adventures  which  await 
him,  while  for  the  Kara-Kirghiz  audience  his  action  shows  not 
only  his  swift  power  of  decision  but  his  superiority  to  vulgar 
considerations  in  not  shrinking  from  disguising  himself  as  a 
despised  Chinese. 

Of  course  if  a  hero  is  renowned  for  his  cunning,  his  disguise 
will  reflect  it  and  show  what  a  good  actor  he  is.  So  in  The  Stealing 
of  the  Mare  Abu  Zeyd  tells  how  he  makes  himself  look  like  a 

1  Manas •,  p.  256. 

194 


THE  MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE 

wandering  beggar  before  he  goes  to  the  encampment  of  his  worst 
enemy  to  steal  his  mare  : 

And  I  reached  my  hand  to  my  wallet  and  found  in  it  things  needful, 

And  I  took  from  it  an  onion  and  an  egg-shell  of  the  ostrich, 

And  made  a  fire  on  the  ground  with  twigs  of  the  wild  willow, 

And  in  a  golden  bowl  I  mixed  and  turned  the  ingredients, 

Then  whitened  I  my  beard  and  limned  my  face  with  wrinkles, 

Lowering  my  brows  a  little  and  darkening  one  of  my  eyelids, 

And  I  crooked  my  back  like  a  bow,  a  bow  bent  for  the  shooting, 

And  donned  my  clothes  of  disguise,  that  seeing  none  might  know  me.1 

This  is  almost  professional  in  its  accomplishment  and  befits  the 
wily  spirit  of  Abu  Zeyd.  Later  in  the  poem  he  has  to  disguise 
himself  anew.  He  has  stolen  the  mare,  but  the  girl  who  helped 
him  to  do  so  is  in  trouble  because  of  it,  and  he  has  to  go  back  to 
help  her.  This  time  his  disguise  is  even  more  skilful,  and  he  is 
every  whit  as  proud  of  it : 

And  I  took  from  my  back  my  wallet,  and  shook  the  dust  from  its 

leather, 

And  I  loosed  the  buttons  all,  and  searched  its  inner  recesses, 
And  took  from  it  a  dress  should  serve  me  for  disguisement, 
Unguents  and  oil  of  salghan,  and  red  beans  and  essalkam, 
And  I  roasted  them  on  the  fire  till  they  were  ripe  and  ruddy. 
And  I  whitened  my  beard  with  chalk,  and  pulled  down  my 

mustachios, 

And  dyed  my  face  with  saffron  till  my  cheeks  glowed  like  apples  ; 
And  I  wrinkled  the  skin  of  my  brows  and  crooked  my  back  like  a 

bent  bow, 

And  leaned  upon  my  staff.     For  am  I  not,  O  people, 
A  man  of  infinite  wiles,  a  cunning  man,  a  deceiver  ? 
And  over  the  rest  of  my  clothes  I  set  the  garb  of  a  dervish, 
And  held  a  pot  in  my  hand,  even  of  the  pots  of  the  beggars.2 

Here,  as  in  Homer's  account  of  Hera's  beautifying  process,  the 
poet  uses  stock  themes  with  much  brilliance  and  dash  to  secure  a 
special  effect.  Each  item  in  the  catalogue  of  the  "  make  up  "  may 
be  stock,  but  the  result  is  exciting  and  dramatic.  It  shows  that 
Abu  Zeyd,  the  great  hero,  enjoys  himself  on  such  an  errand  as 
much  as  Odysseus  does.  Indeed  we  may  imagine  that,  when  he 
prepared  himself  to  go  as  a  spy  into  Troy,  Odysseus  took  similar 
care  to  disguise  himself.  For,  as  Helen  tells  the  story  : 

Bruising  himself  with  unseemly  blows,  and  over  his  shoulders 

Throwing  a  hideous  rag,  like  some  poor  drudge  of  the  household, 

Into  the  fine  broad  streets  of  the  enemies*  city  he  entered, 

In  his  disguise  appearing  a  different  person,  a  beggar, 

He  who  was  far  from  such  when  among  the  ships  of  Achaeans.3 

1  Blunt,  ii,  p.  144.  2  Idem,  pp.  190-91.  3  Od.  iv,  244-8. 

195 


HEROIC  POETRY 

In  such  adventures  the  paradox  of  the  hero  who  assumes  a  lowly 
guise  calls  for  detailed  treatment. 

A  special  interest  attaches  to  those  women  who  for  some  reason 
put  on  men's  clothing.  They  may  not  necessarily  wish  to  be 
thought  to  be  men,  or  have  any  other  reason  than  that  such 
clothing  is  useful  for  some  specific  purpose.  So  when  the  Bulgarian 
girl,  Penka,  wishes  to  pay  a  last  visit  to  the  haiduks,  with  whom  she 
has  consorted  in  the  past,  she  does  not  wish  to  pass  for  a  man 
but  simply  to  dress  as  men  do,  because  that  is  demanded  by  the 
adventurous  conditions  of  their  life.  She  tells  her  mother  : 

"  I  have  a  request  to  make  you, 
Then  address  it  to  my  father  : 
That  he  give  to  me  a  dowry, 
Give  me  also  a  man's  costume, 
Give  me  too  a  pair  of  pistols, 
Give  me  too  a  Frankish  sabre, 
Give  me  too  a  great  long  rifle  ; 
Like  a  man  I  wish  to  live  now, 
For  two  days  or  three  days,  mother, 
Or  maybe  for  three  hours  only, 
On  the  mountain  with  the  haiduks."  l 

Penka  duly  dresses  herself  in  this  style,  visits  the  haiduks,  and  takes 
a  stately  farewell  of  them.  Nothing  remarkable  is  attempted,  but 
the  male  clothing  gives  a  touch  of  colour  and  character.  When 
the  Russian  heroine,  the  wife  of  Staver,  hears  that  her  husband 
has  been  thrown  into  prison  by  Vladimir,  she  sees  that  she  alone 
can  rescue  him  and  must  use  her  wits  to  do  so.  She  must  go  to 
the  court  and  see  what  can  be  done  there  :  so  she  disguises  herself 
as  a  man.  The  poet  pays  little  attention  to  the  action  and  treats 
it  in  a  very  matter-of-fact  way,  as  a  mere  piece  of  mechanics  : 

Very,  very  quickly  she  ran  to  the  barber, 

Cut  off  her  hair  like  a  young  man, 

Transformed  herself  into  Vasili  Mikulich, 

Collected  a  bold  company 

Of  forty  bold  archers, 

Forty  bold  wrestlers, 

And  rode  to  the  city  of  Kiev.2 

This  too  is  perfectly  factual  and  straightforward.  Staver's  wife  is 
engaged  on  a  bold  errand,  for  which  disguise  is  necessary,  but  she 
treats  this  transformation  of  herself  from  Vasilissa  Mikulichna  into 
Vasili  Mikulich  in  a  nonchalant  spirit,  as  if  it  were  part  of  the 
ordinary  conduct  of  life. 

1  Dozon,  p.  28.  2  Rybnikov,  i,  p.  204. 

196 


THE  MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE 

This  device  can  be  given  a  greater  complexity  when  the  issues 
involved  are  less  simple.  In  the  Canaanite  Aqhat,  Aqhat's  father, 
Daniel,  decides  that  he  must  exact  vengeance  for  the  murder  of  his 
son,  but  he  does  not  know  who  the  murderer  is.  He  himself  is  too 
old  to  do  anything ;  so  he  turns  to  his  daughter,  Paghat,  who  is 
renowned  chiefly  for  her  excellent  conduct  of  domestic  affairs,  and 
charges  her  with  the  task.  She  proceeds  with  some  care : 

She  fetches  up  a  fish  from  the  sea, 

Washes  and  rouges  herself 

With  the  red  dye  of  that  eosmetic  of  the  sea 

Which  comes  from  the  "  wild  ox  "  whose  emission 

is  on  the  sea. 

Then  she  takes  and  puts  on  the  garb  of  a  warrior, 
Places  the  knife  in  its  sheath, 
Places  the  sword  in  its  scabbard  ; 
And  above  she  dons  the  garb  of  a  woman, 
But  beneath  that  of  a  soldier.1 

Paghat  does  a  double  task.  She  both  emphasises  her  femininity 
by  painting  her  face  with  some  mysterious  substance  which 
may  be  connected  with  the  cuttle-fish,  and  arms  herself  like 
a  man  underneath  her  woman's  clothing.  She  knows  what  she 
is  doing.  She  hopes,  when  she  has  found  the  murderer,  to  allure 
him  with  her  charms  and  then  to  kill  him.  And  this  in  fact 
she  does.  When  by  a  happy  chance  she  comes  upon  Yatpan,  he 
welcomes  her  and  offers  her  wine.  Attracted,  no  doubt,  by  her 
beauty,  he  boasts  of  the  men  whom  he  has  killed,  and  so  reveals 
himself  as  the  murderer.  He  then  gets  drunk,  and  Paghat  has  no 
difficulty  in  killing  him.  Her  disguise  is  peculiar  but  needed  for 
a  special  purpose.  That  is  why  it  is  described  with  some  care. 

A  third  item  in  the  mechanics  of  narrative  consists  of  feasts, 
entertainments  and  the  like.  Poets  are  not  ashamed  to  speak,  even 
at  some  length,  about  eating  and  drinking.  Heroes  have  healthy 
appetites  as  befit  their  ebullient  vitality  and  their  life  of  action.  It 
is  fitting  that  when  he  goes  spying,  Odysseus  should  have  three 
meals  in  the  course  of  a  night.2  It  is  the  other  side  of  his  ability 
to  spend  two  days  and  two  nights  without  food  in  the  sea.  The 
notice  which  poets  take  of  food  and  drink  is  a  tribute  to  the 
physical  virtues  of  their  heroes.  But  it  is  also  more  than  this. 
The  giving  of  feasts  is  a  sign  of  princely  generosity  and  splendour. 
By  his  conduct  of  convivial  occasions  the  hero  shows  a  new  side 
of  his  mastery  of  men  and  things.  Since  food  and  drink  are  a 

1  Gaster,  p.  309  ff.  ;    cf.  Gordon,  p.   100.     The  "  wild  ox  "  is  variously 
explained  as  the  whale,  the  ray-fish,  and  the  cuttle-fish. 

2  //.  ix,  91  ff.,  218  ff.  ;   x,  578. 

197 


HEROIC  POETRY 

necessary  part  of  life,  the  heroic  world  insists  that  they  should  be 
treated  with  style  and  dignity. 

Descriptions  of  feasts  are  often  enough  perfunctory,  as  if  they 
were  introduced  mainly  to  keep  the  story  going.  This  is  what 
Homer  on  the  whole  does.  The  great  man  entertains  guests,  but 
not  too  much  bother  is  made  about  it,  nor  usually  do  we  hear 
more  than — 

He  set  before  them  a  feast  to  give  their  hearts'  satisfaction ; 

They  stretched  hands  to  the  dainties  which  lay  all  ready  before  them.1 

The  Russian  poets  do  the  same  kind  of  thing,  though  not  quite 
with  the  Homeric  brevity.  At  Prince  Vladimir's  court  the 
Princess  Apraxya  carves  swans  for  the  guests  to  eat,  while  they  sit 
in  order  of  eminence  at  oaken  tables  and  eat  "  sweet  food  "  and 
drink  "  honeyed  drink  ".  This  is  the  stock  form,  of  which  the 
main  elements  are  hardly  varied.  The  Norse  poets  are  even  more 
succinct,  as  when  Knefroth  comes  to  Atli  with  his  fatal  invitation 
to  Gunnar : 

To  Gjuki's  home  came  he      and  to  Gunnar's  dwelling, 
With  benches  round  the  hearth,      and  to  the  beer  so  sweet. 
Then  the  followers,  hiding      their  falseness,  all  drank 
Their  wine  in  the  war-hall,      of  the  Huns'  wrath  wary.2 

In  another  version  the  messengers  are  received  with  princely 
hospitality  : 

Then  the  famed  ones  brought  mead,      and  fair  was  the  feast, 
Full  many  were  the  horns,      till  the  men  had  drunk  deep.3 

The  feast  must  be  mentioned  if  the  setting  and  the  situation  are 
to  be  understood,  but  there  is  no  need  to  elaborate  it. 

This  economy  is  often  abandoned  when  the  needs  of  the 
narrative  demand  something  more  detailed.  Homer,  for  instance, 
is  well  aware  that  when  Odysseus  sets  out  on  his  perilous  voyage 
from  Calypso,  he  needs  meat  and  drink  : 

The  goddess  set  in  the  boat  one  skin  of  red  wine,  and  another 
Large  one  filled  with  water,  and  store  of  food  in  a  wallet, 
And  many  dainties  she  set  therein  to  his  heart's  satisfaction. 4 

We  do  not  hear  that  Odysseus  eats  and  drinks  of  this  supply,  but 
it  is  enough  that  it  is  mentioned.  It  shows  the  practical  spirit  in 
which  he  sets  out  on  his  voyage.  A  Jugoslav  poet  is  less  shy  about 
speaking  of  a  meal  al  fresco.  When  Bircanin  flija  is  out  in  the 

1  //.  ix,  90-91,  220-21  ;   xxiv,  626-7;    Od.  i,  148-9,  etc. 
2  Atlakvitha,  1-2.  3  Atlantdl,  8,  1-2.  4   Od.  v,  265-7. 

198 


THE  MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE 

country  on  a  dubious  quest,  he  thinks  of  food  and  eats  a  comfort- 
able luncheon,  despite  the  presence  of  danger  : 

Then  the  servant  brought  the  bag  with  victuals, 

Things  to  eat  and  drink  he  took  from  out  it 

In  accordance  with  his  master's  orders. 

llija  quickly  seized  the  wooden  bottle 

That  was  wound  around  with  plaited  rushes 

And  was  rilled  with  potent  sljfvovica 

That  was  rather  older  than  flija. 

And  he  drew  out  cakes  of  bread  unleavened, 

With  the  cakes  dried  meat  and  cheese  producing, 

That  they  might  eat  something  with  the  brandy.1 

This  is  a  picnic  held  in  a  hurry,  but  the  poet  enjoys  telling  how 
even  in  such  a  moment  the  hero  lives  up  to  his  standards  by  doing 
himself  well. 

The  pleasures  of  eating  and  drinking  may  not  always  be  very 
dignified,  and  some  poets  like  to  tell  how  heroes  get  drunk.  This 
is  not  to  the  taste  of  Homer,  who  uses  the  adjective  "  heavy  with 
wine  "  as  a  term  of  abuse  and  contempt,2  and  whose  chief  drunkard 
is  the  Cyclops.  But  other  poets  are  more  tolerant.  Indeed,  a 
Kalmuck  regards  it  as  a  desirable  element  in  a  convivial  occasion  : 

In  the  beautiful  wood  in  the  spring-time, 

In  the  motley  yellow  chamber  like  a  picture, 

With  his  six  thousand  and  twelve  warriors 

As  beautiful  as  the  sun, 

At  the  tables  set  for  vodka, 

He  drinks  and  makes  merry. 

His  warriors  grow  hot  and  drunken 

With  the  wine  with  which  Dzhangar  regales  them.3 

There  are  of  course  no  hints  of  unseemly  behaviour.  The  heroes 
still  conduct  themselves  with  heroic  propriety.  ^J^deed  delight  in 
drink  and  intoxication  are  often  regarded  as  proper  to  a  hero, 
worthy  of  his  physical  strength  and  ebullient  nature.  1  The 
Armenian  hero,  David  of  Sasoun,  is  not  above  being  drunk  for 
several  days  even  in  a  time  of  danger  and  crisis,  and  the  poet  seems 
to  approve  of  his  behaviour  as  showing  his  superiority  to  ordinary 
rules.  When  David  has  succeeded  in  winning  Khandut  to  be  his 
bride,  he  celebrates  his  success  with  wine  : 

David  said  :  "  Where  have  we  a  cask  of  wine  ? 
I  shall  have  bread  and  begin  to  eat. 
From  my  soul  I  wish  to  wash  off  the  dust. 
Here  I  cannot  wash  my  tongue. 

1  Morison,  p.  28.  -  //.  i,  225. 

3  Dzhangar iada,  p.  no. 

199  O 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Am  I  a  sparrow  to  pour  water  on  myself, 
Am  I  a  camel  to  drink  from  a  spoon  ?  " 
They  hurried  to  the  house  in  search  of  a  great  cup, 
And  the  cup  was  as  big  as  a  basin. 
They  gave  David  to  drink  from  that  cup. 
David  was  drunk  and  became  gay. 
Drunkenness  took  David  and  carried  him  off. 
David  was  drunk,  he  hung  his  head  on  his  breast.1 

In  this  condition  David  looks  an  easy  prey  to  his  enemies,  who 
prepare  to  kill  him,  but  each  time  that  he  raises  his  head,  they  are 
frightened  and  do  nothing,  with  the  result  that,  when  David 
recovers,  he  kills  them.  Even  in  drink  a  hero  keeps  his  essential 
nature. 

In  the  Kara- Kirghiz  Manas  the  theme  of  a  feast  is  used  for  a 
special  purpose.  The  khans  have  plotted  against  Manas,  and  he 
skilfully  contrives  to  humiliate  them.  He  invites  them  to  his 
dwelling,  and  his  wife,  Kanykai,  helps  him  to  entertain  them  so 
handsomely  that  they  repent  of  their  plans  and  acknowledge 
Manas'  power  and  superiority.  Here  too  the  theme  of  drunken- 
ness has  a  part.  In  making  her  guests  drunk  Kanykai  behaves  as 
a  hostess  should,  but  the  khans  show  their  inferior  nature  by 
succumbing  too  quickly  to  the  drinks  which  she  provides.  She 
sets  about  her  task  in  a  conscientious  spirit : 

To  boil  the  flesh  of  a  white  horse, 

That  she  might  entertain  the  warriors, 

Generous  Kanykai  gave  orders. 

On  empty  stomachs  the  guests  began  to  drink. 

Strong  arak  made  them  drunk  ; 

They  were  drugged  then 

By  drinking  kumys, 

They  were  bewitched  then 

By  the  tables  painted  with  pictures, 

They  made  jests  then 

To  the  generous  maidens. 

There  was  a  buzzing  in  their  heads, 

Their  bowels  began  to  burn, 

Drops  of  sweat  glistened  on  their  lips, 

Their  tongues  were  loosened. 

Fresh  drinks  Kanykai 

Now  had  brought  to  them, 

Joy  she  poured  out  to  them  ; 

Modesty  humbled  them.2 

The  intoxication  which  is  suitable  enough  for  David  in  a  moment 
of  triumph  is  not  equally  suitable  for  the  khans.  They  show  their 

1  David  Sasunskii,  p.  273.  2  Manas,  p.  96. 

200 


THE  MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE 

inferiority  to  the  great  man  against  whom  they  have  plotted  and 
who  now  humbles  them. 

CJn  contrast  with  these  drunken  revels  we  may  set  the  scene  in 
Beowulf  when  Hrothgar  gives  a  feast  to  celebrate  the  rout  of 
Grendel.  The  poet  insists  that  this  is  highly  decorous  : 

Nor  have  I  heard  that  a  muster      of  men  so  many 
About  their  booty-giver      bare  themselves  better.1 

He  is  less  interested  in  the  pleasures  of  eating  and  drinking  than  in 
the  gifts  which  are  presented  and  the  spirit  in  which  they  are 
received.  The  king  gives  Beowulf  an  ensign  of  gold  and  a  suit  of 
armour,  and  Beowulf  accepts  them  with  dignified  gratitude.  The 
company  celebrates  a  notable  occasion  in  good  fellowship,  and  the 
poet  applauds  their  temper  : 

Nor  have  I  heard  that  more  friendliwisc      four  treasures 

Any  gold-girdled      groups  of  men 

At  the  ale-benches  each      upon  other  bestowed.2 

The  presentation  of  gifts  is  followed  by  a  lay  from  the  court- 
minstrel  in  the  Homeric  manner,  and  after  it  more  gifts  are 
bestowed.  Then  the  queen,  Wealhtheow,  makes  a  speech  to 
Beowulf,  wishing  him  fame  and  happiness  and  wealth  and  hoping 
that  he  will  help  her  sons  as  he  has  helped  her  husband.  She  ends 
with  praise  of  her  own  court  for  its  unity  and  obedience  : 

"  Here  is  every  earl      by  the  others  trusted, 

Mild  of  mood,      to  the  Master  loyal, 

The  thegns  are  kindly,      the  commons  all  in  readiness. 

Drinking,  the  nobles      do  as  I  bid  them."  3 

This  is  certainly  not  like  the  spirit  of  Tatar  or  Armenian  revels. 
The  poet's  Christian  outlook  and  love  of  decorum  have  invaded 
his  ideas  of  what  heroes  should  do  when  they  rejaxj 

On  some  occasions  songs  are  sung  at  feasts  for  the  amusement 
and  pleasure  of  the  guests  and  for  no  other  reason.  In  Phaeacia 
Odysseus  hears  not  only  heroic  songs  but  the  scandalous  lay  of 
Ares  and  Aphrodite,  which  is  not  intended  to  do  anything  more 
than  amuse.  At  such  times  the  host  or  hostess  takes  pains  to  see 
that  the  bard  or  the  singers  do  their  task  with  a  high  degree  of 
accomplishment  and  win  the  admiration  of  the  chief  guest.  So 
in  The  Stealing  of  the  Mare  Abu  Zeyd  is  entertained  on  a  royal  scale 
by  the  maiden,  Alia,  whose  life  he  has  saved.  Both  the  feast  and 
the  music  are  on  an  unusually  high  level  and  reveal  a  refined  taste 
for  good  living : 

1  Beowulf,  loii-iz.  -  Ibid.  1027-9.  3  Hnd*  1128-31. 

2O I 


HEROIC  POETRY 

And  when  the  meal  was  done  then  poured  they  fair  potations, 
Drinking  in  jewelled  cups  with  skilled  musicians  and  singers, 
(Where  should  the  like  be  found  ?)  for  they  sang  in  such  sweet 

measure 

That,  if  a  bird  had  heard,  it  had  stooped  from  its  way  in  heaven. 
In  figure  and  trope  they  sang,  of  four-and-twenty  stanzas. 
And  Alia  chose  eight  players,  the  cunningest  among  them, 
Four  for  the  lute  and  viol,  and  four  for  hymns  and  chauntings. 
Each  sate  him  down  and  played,  and  they  sang  with  pleasant  voices.1 

In  a  world  where  song  and  music  are  appreciated  by  everyone,  and 
judged  by  exacting  standards,  only  the  best  is  good  enough  for  the 
hero,  especially  when,  like  Abu  Zeyd,  he  has  saved  the  life  of  his 
hostess. 

It  is  but  a  small  way  from  singing  to  dancing,  and  on  festal 
occasions  the  dance  often  occurs  as  a  fitting  accompaniment  to 
general  rejoicing.  The  poet  may  describe  it  in  a  simple  and 
matter-of-fact  way  as  a  small  part  in  a  general  subject.  So  the 
Ossete  poet  does  not  trouble  to  say  too  much  about  a  dance,  which 
forms  a  minor  part  of  his  story  : 

Sometimes  the  Narts  went  to  the  public  square, 
Gathered  for  the  dance  on  the  open  playground, 
They  danced  the  simd  —  no  simple  dance  is  it  — 
Such  a  dance  is  it  that  the  earth  shivered, 
The  earth  quaked  beneath  the  young  men's  feet.2 

The  Bulgarian  poet  treats  a  dance  in  a  similar  manner  in  the  Tale  of 
Kolio,  where  Kolio  collects  men  together  by  the  power  of  his  music  : 

Kolio  obeyed  his  orders, 

And  he  took  with  him  his  bag-pipe 

And  he  went  to  Stambul  city, 

To  Stambul  of  seven  towers, 

To  the  inn  of  seven  towers, 

Where  the  Sultan's  beasts  are  slaughtered. 

Kolio  played  upon  his  bag-pipe, 

And  the  young  men  gathered  round  him, 

They  were  thirty  and  three  hundred, 

Some  three  hundred  new  companions. 

Kolio  led  them  off  with  him, 

Led  them  to  the  captain  Pancho.3 

In  these  cases  the  dance  and  song  are  merely  a  part  of  a  more 
important  action,  but  the  poet  pauses  for  a  moment  on  them  just 
to  make  them  vivid,  before  going  on  to  his  main  theme. 

It  is  not  quite  the  same  thing  when  a  dance  or  other  display  is 
held  at  some  important  festival.  Then  the  poet  may  wish  to  make 

1  Blunt,  ii,  p.  178.  2  Dynnik,  p.  47.  3  Dozon,  p.  47. 

202 


THE  MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE 

something  special  of  it.  Weddings  and  the  like  may  demand 
dances  as  a  necessary  part  of  the  ritual.  So  an  Esthonian  poem  tells 
how,  when  two  great  heroes  are  married,  one  of  them  gives  a  great 
display  with  his  bride  : 

After  this  they  danced  the  cross-dance, 
Waltzed  the  waltzes  of  Esthonia, 
And  they  danced  the  Arju  dances, 
And  the  dances  of  the  West  Land  ; 
And  they  danced  upon  the  gravel, 
And  they  trampled  on  the  greensward, 
Starry  youth  and  maiden  Salme 
Thus  their  nuptials  held  in  rapture.1 

Homer  seems  to  have  known  something  of  the  same  kind.  He 
speaks  of  "  the  dancing-place  which  Daedalus  made  in  broad 
Cnossus  for  the  fair-haired  Ariadne  ",2  and  perhaps  he  records 
memories  of  dances  held  in  the  great  courtyard  of  the  Minoan 
palace.  So  too  at  the  court  of  Alcinous,  after  Demodocus  has  sung 
of  Ares  and  Aphrodite,  two  dancers  of  special  excellence  do  a  turn 
in  which  they  bend  backwards,  throw  a  ball  up,  leap,  and  catch  it 
while  still  themselves  in  the  air.  After  this  they  dance  with  many 
changes,  and  the  other  men,  who  stand  round,  beat  time  on  the 
ground.3  Wilder  and  more  varied  but  hardly  different  in  kind  is 
the  scene  of  gaiety  described  by  a  Yakut  poet : 

Nine  days  and  nights  on  end  the  feast  lasted, 

And  they  played  every  play  without  growing  weary. 

Then  the  women  danced  ! 

Then  the  strong  men  struggled  ! 

Then  the  runners  competed  in  speed  ! 

Then  friend  with  friend  in  rivalry 

Tried  to  leap  on  one  leg  ! 

Nine  days  and  nights  on  end,  they  say, 

They  danced  and  played. 

Then  the  hungry  man  ate  his  fill. 

Then  the  lean  man  made  merry.* 

In  hardly  any  of  these  cases  are  the  dances  indispensable  to  the 
story,  but  they  give  substance  and  solidity  to  it. 

There  is  at  least  one  case  where  a  dance  really  affects  the  action, 
and  then  the  poet  has  to  do  something  special  about  it.  When 
Alaman  Bet  insinuates  himself,  disguised  as  a  Chinese,  into  the 
house  of  the  sorceress,  Kanyshai,  he  finds  a  feast  in  progress  and 
joins  in  the  dancing.  But  here  the  poet  has  a  special  concern.  His 
account  of  the  actual  dancing  is  short  and  conventional.  What 

1   Kirby,  i,  p.  14.  ?  //.  xviii,  590  ff. 

3   Od.  viii,  370  flf.  4  Yastrcmski,  p.  45. 

203 


HEROIC  POETRY 

interests  him  particularly  are  its  results.  Alaman  Bet  is  surrounded 
by  enemies,  but  boldly  dances  away,  and  his  dancing  has  a  notable 
result  on  Kanyshai : 

Kanyshai  on  her  throne, 

On  her  golden  throne, 

Watches  how  Alaman  dances  : 

Mis  dancing  steals  away  her  wits  ! 

I  ler  body  grows  weary, 

She  sighs  for  Alaman, 

Her  passions  are  inflamed, 

She  dreams  of  bliss, 

That  Alaman  embraces  her, 

That  Alaman  kisses  her. 

She  is  sick  with  desire, 

She  is  weak  before  Alaman, 

She  sees  his  hot  lips, 

She  sees  his  white  teeth, 

She  sees  his  round  hands, 

She  sees  his  strong  limbs  ! 

Her  memory  fails,  she  swoons, 

She  comes  back  to  consciousness, 

Fires  consume  her  within.1 

In  this  condition  Kanyshai  is  in  no  condition  to  resist  Alaman  Bet 
when  he  pretends  to  make  love  to  her ;  she  delivers  herself  into 
his  power  and  is  killed. 

^  A  fourth  common  theme  is  that  of  sailing.  Unknown  to 
inland  peoples,  it  naturally  appeals  to  those  who  live  by  the  sea, 
and  has  developed  standard  forms  and  interesting  variations.  Its 
basic  elements  are  short  descriptions  of  putting  a  ship  to  sea, 
travelling,  and  coming  to  shore.  Such  at  least  is  necessary  to  move 
a  hero  from  one  place  to  another,  and  in  its  simplest  form  the 
theme  often  occurs.  But  it  often  does  more  than  describe  a  mere 
change  of  place  by  the  hero.  The  poets  know  the  sea  too  well  not 
to  introduce  some  additional  poetry  which  has  its  own  charnv 
Homer  sets  the  tone  when  he  tells  how  Telemachus  prepares  a 
ship  and  puts  to  sea.  Homer's  audience,  we  may  be  sure,  knows 
all  about  ships  and  will  be  interested  and  critical  about  any  factual 
details.  The  ship  of  imagination  must  be  every  whit  as  real  as  a 
ship  of  common  life.  Homer  is  aware  of  this  and  shows  that  he 
understands  about  sailing.  First,  the  ship  is  made  ready  : 

Smart  at  the  word  they  obeyed,  and  raised  up  the  mast  made  of 

pine-wood, 

Firm  in  the  deep  mast-box  they  fixed  it  and  tied  it  with  forestays, 
Hoisting  the  white  sails  up  with  twisted  halyards  of  ox-hide,2 

1  Manas,  p.  257.  2  Od.  ii,  424-6. 

204 


THE  MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE 

The  professional  preliminary  establishes  the  ship's  reality,  but 
from  this  Homer  advances  to  tell  how  the  ship  starts  and  gets 
under  way,  and  to  this  he  gives  his  own  quiet  poetry,  though  it  is 
only  an  incidental  feature  in  the  narrative  : 

Under  the  breeze  the  sail  bellied  out ;  the  blue  wave  was  divided 

Roaring  about  her  bows,  as  the  ship  gathered  way  through  the  water. 

Over  the  waves  she  darted  in  haste  to  accomplish  her  journey. 

Then  in  the  swift  black  ship  they  set  to  tighten  the  tackle 

And  bowls  brim-full  of  wine  they  put  for  themselves  on  the  benches, 

Pouring  out  some  to  the  gods  who  are  ageless  and  everlasting, 

Chiefly  to  that  great  daughter  of  Zeus,  the  grey-eyed  Athene. 

All  night  long  till  the  morning  the  good  ship  passed  on  her  journey.1 

The  ship  of  Telemachus  sails  as  other  ships  sail,  and  Homer's 
account  of  her  keeps  to  familiar  facts,  but  from  them  he  extracts  a 
charming  poetry,  not  merely  in  the  sense  of  the  ship  making  her 
own  way  with  the  wind  behind  her  but  in  the  account  of  what  is 
done  aboard  in  the  performance  of  the  rites  customary  to  men  at 
sea.  When  the  ship  comes  to  land,  the  ritual  is  fixed  and  the  same 
proceedings  usually  take  place.  The  ship  is  driven  on  to  the 
beach,  and  then  the  crew  take  off  the  sails  and  furl  them,  and  come 
to  land.  This  done,  they  turn  the  ship  round,  so  that  she  can 
start  again  when  occasion  demands.2  It  is  all  very  simple  and 
straightforward,  but  correct  and  true  to  fact.  Homer  might  have 
omitted  these  details  and  indeed  said  no  more  than  that  Tele- 
machus sails  from  one  place  to  another.  But  by  making  the 
voyage  circumstantial  he  gives  an  additional  strength  and  charm 
to  his  story. 

/Something  of  the  same  kind  may  be  seen  in  Beowulf ',  where  the 
poet  feels  to  some  degree  the  appeal  of  ships  and  the  sea,  though 
scarcely  with  Homer's  discerning  eye  for  its  many  beauties.  His 
epithets  and  descriptive  phrases  are  picturesque  enough  and  show 
that  at  least  his  teachers  were  sea-faring  men  who  knew  the  lure 
of  great  waters.  He  exercises  his  own  kind  of  art  when  he  tells 
how  Beowulf  sails  home  after  his  adventures  in  Jutland.  Beneath 
the  mannered  style  we  can  detect  not  only  a  sound  sense  of  fact  but 
a  delight  in  recalling  how  a  ship  gets  going  before  a  wind  and  takes 
the  waves  lightly : 

Then  was  to  the  mast      one  of  the  mer-sheets, 
A  sail,  rope-fastened  ;      the  sea-wood  roared  ; 
Nor  that  wave-floater      did  the  wind  over  the  waters 
Hinder  from  sailing  ;      the  sea-goer  started, 
Floated,  foamy-necked,      forth  over  the  waves, 
The  banded  stem      over  brimming  streams.3 

1  Ibid.  427-34.  2  Ibid,  iii,  10-11.  3  Beowulf,  1905-10. 

205 


HEROIC  POETRY 

If  this  is  an  Anglo- Saxon_ counterpart  to  Telemachus'  voyage,  we 
may  also  compare  his  landing  at  Pylos  with  Beowulf's  in  Jutland. 
Nor  in  this  is  the  Anglo-Saxon  poet  entirely  inferior.  He  catches 
at  least  the  charm  of  the  moment  when  land  is  sighted,  and  speaks 
of  it  with  a  decorous  thrill : 

on  the  second  day 

Her  winding  stem      had  waded  so  far 
That  the  sailors      land  could  see, 
Shore-cliffs  shining,      mountains  sheer, 
Spreading  sea-nesses.1 

The  landing  itself  is  dismissed  quickly,  almost  without  any  detail 
except  that  the  ship  is  made  fast.  The  Anglo-Saxon  poet  has  a 
less  steady  eye  than  Homer,  and  at  this  point  hurries  unwontedly 
to  get  on  with  his  story /^ 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  the  poet  of  Roland  knew  the  sea 
so  well  as  Homer  or  the  poet  of  Beowulf,  and  indeed  ships  only  once 
play  an  important  part  in  his  poem.  Baligant  comes  from  Babylon 
to  help  the  Saracen  king,  Marsilies,  and  he  has  to  come  by  sea. 
The  poet's  interest  is  less  in  sailing  than  in  the  preparations  and 
appearance  of  a  great  fleet : 

His  great  dromonds,  he  made  them  all  ready, 
Barges  and  skiffs  and  ships  and  galleries  ; 
Neath  Alexandre,  a  haven  next  the  sea, 
In  readiness  he  gat  his  whole  navy. 
That  was  in  May,  first  summer  of  the  year, 
All  of  his  hosts  he  launched  upon  the  sea.2 

Once  prepared,  the  fleet  puts  to  sea,  but  what  interests  the  poet 
is  not  the  technical  details  of  its  voyage  but  its  brilliance,  and  he 
dwells  with  a  special  insistence  on  the  lights  which  gleam  on  it  at 
night : 

Great  are  the  hosts  of  that  opposed  race  ; 
With  speed  they  sail,  they  steer  and  navigate, 
High  on  their  yards  at  their  mast-heads  they  place 
Lanterns  enough,  and  carbuncles  so  great 
Thence,  from  above,  such  light  they  dissipate 
The  sea's  more  clear  at  midnight  than  by  day. 
And  when  they  come  into  the  land  of  Spain 
All  that  country  lightens  and  shines  again.3 

This  case  presents  points  of  interest.  The  poet  clearly  feels  that 
he  must  tell  how  Baligant  gets  from  Egypt  to  Spain  and  therefore 
goes  through  the  usual  mechanism  of  building  a  fleet  and  putting  it 
to  sea.  But  the  actual  sailing  is  either  too  dull  or  too  unfamiliar  for 

1  Beowulf,  219-23.  2  Roland,  2624-9.  3  Ibid.  2630-37. 

206 


THE  MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE 

him  to  say  anything  about  it.  He  concentrates  instead  on  the 
fleet's  brightness  at  night,  and  no  doubt  this  is  intended  to  stress 
the  wealth  and  brilliance  of  the  men  who  come  from  the  East  to 
help  Marsilies.  He  says  nothing  which  is  impossible,  and  he  is 
quite  within  the  navigation  of  his  time  in  making  the  fleet  sail  up 
the  Ebro,  since  it  was  said  to  be  navigable  even  beyond  Saragossa. 
But  the  factual  element  is  subordinated,  not  without  art,  to  the 
impression  of  brilliance. 

The  Norse  poets  seldom  have  time  to  speak  of  the  mere  mech- 
anism of  sailing,  and  if  they  do  so,  it  is  because  it  is  relevant  to 
their  story.  For  instance,  in  Atlamdl  when  Gjuki  and  his  com- 
panions go  to  Atli,  they  go  by  sea,  as  suits  a  poem  said  to  have 
been  composed  in  Greenland.  The  poet  gives  only  a  quatrain  to 
the  voyage,  but  in  it  shows  the  heroic  strength  of  his  characters 
and  their  eagerness  to  get  to  their  goal : 

Full  stoutly  they  rowed,      and  the  keel  clove  asunder, 
Their  backs  strained  at  the  oars,      and  their  strength  was  fierce. 
The  oar-loops  were  burst,      the  thole-pins  were  broken, 
Nor  the  ship  made  they  fast      ere  from  her  they  fared.1 

When,  however,  ships  play  an  essential  part  in  the  action,  the  poet 
gives  them  their  due  recognition  and  shows  how  well  he  under- 
stands their  ways.  This  is  the  case  with  one  of  the  poems  on  Helgi 
Hundingsbane.  When  he  takes  his  fleet  into  Stafnsnes  the  poet 
dwells  on  its  gallant  air  : 

Soon  off  Stafnsnes      stood  the  ships, 
Fair  they  glided      and  gay  with  gold.2 

Once  in  harbour,  Helgi  prepares  for  battle,  and  the  poet  gives  a 
clear  account  of  clearing  the  decks  and  waking  the  sailors  : 

The  ship's  tents  soon      the  chieftain  struck, 
And  waked  the  throng      of  warriors  all ; 
The  heroes  the  red  of      dawn  beheld  ; 
And  on  the  masts      the  gallant  men 
Made  fast  the  sails      in  Varinsfjord.3 

At  each  move  of  Helgi's  fleet  the  poet  finds  something  to  say  which 
both  illustrates  the  action  and  is  an  implicit  comment  on  Helgi's 
behaviour,  as  when  he  defies  the  elements  and  sails  into  the  rough 
sea : 

Helgi  bade  higher      hoist  the  sails, 

Nor  did  the  ships'-folk      shun  the  waves.4 

1  Atlamdly  34.  *  Helgakvitha  Hundingsbana,  i,  24,  1-2. 

3  Ibid.  27.  4  Ibid.  30,  1-2. 

207 


HEROIC  POETRY 

This  was  composed  by  a  man  who  felt  the  call  of  ships  and  knew 
that  their  management  betrays  a  man's  nature.  His  Helgi  is  a 
proud,  reckless  seaman  who  flaunts  his  character  at  sea. 

A  ship  may  reflect  its  owner's  character  in  the  splendour  of  its 
equipage  and  tackle.  On  such  an  occasion  the  poet,  although 
following  formulaic  lines,  may  add  a  detail  or  so  which  gives  an 
additional  touch  of  style  and  brilliance,  as  the  Russian  poet  does 
in  his  account  of  the  visit  of  Nightingale  Budimirovich  to  Prince 
Vladimir.  His  notion  of  ships  is  traditional,  but  by  no  means 
incorrect,  and  he  uses  the  formulae  for  old-fashioned  sailing-ships 
to  produce  a  special  effect  of  wealth  and  grandeur : 

Bravely  were  the  ships  adorned, 

Bravely  were  the  ships  bedecked. 

Stem  and  stern  were  shaped  like  an  aurochs, 

The  broad  sides  were  in  the  fashion  of  an  elk. 

The  sails  were  of  rich  damask, 

The  ships'  anchors  were  of  steel, 

The  anchors  had  silver  rings, 

The  ropes  were  of  the  seven  silks  ; 

Where  the  rudder  was,  it  was  hung 

With  precious  sables  from  foreign  lands  ; 

Where  the  eyebrows  should  be,  it  was  decked 

With  precious  foreign  fox-skins  ; 

In  the  place  of  the  eyes  it  was  inset 

With  sapphire  stones  from  foreign  lands.1 

Nightingale  Budimirovich  is  a  considerable  person,  who  comes  on 
an  important  errand,  to  seek  the  hand  of  Vladimir's  niece  in 
marriage.  He  must  make  a  good  impression  and  be  worthy  of  the 
princess.  A  similar  delight  in  a  ship's  appearance  and  a  similar 
sense  of  the  light  which  it  throws  on  the  owner  may  be  seen  in  the 
Ukrainian  Samijlo  Kishka : 

From  the  city  of  Trebizond  a  galley  advanced, 

Decked  and  adorned  with  three  colours. 

The  first  of  these  colours, 

These  are  the  banners  of  blue-gold  ; 

The  second  of  these  colours, 

These  are  the  cannons  on  the  deck  ; 

The  third  of  these  colours, 

These  are  the  Turkish  tents  of  white  linen. 

On  this  galley  walks  Alkan  Pasha, 

Young  prince  of  Trebizond, 

Surrounded  by  his  chosen  men.2 

The  young  Turkish  prince  has  his  own  style  and  makes  it  felt  even 
when  he  is  at  sea.  Again,  when  a  fleet  sails  to  battle  it  may  somehow 

1  Gilferding,  i,  p.  527  ;  Chadwick,  R.H.P.  p.  1 16  ff.  2  Scherrer,  p.  72. 

208 


THE  MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE 

reflect  the  determined,  warlike  temper  of  its  captain  and  his  com- 
panions. This  is  the  case  in  the  Norse  Battle  of  Hafsfjord  when 
Harold  Fairhaired  sails  into  Hafsfjord  to  fight  Kjotvi  the  Wealthy  : ' 

A  fleet  came  from  the  east,      with  figure-heads  gaping, 

And  with  carved  beaks,      in  desire  for  battle, 

With  warriors  laden      and  with  white  shields, 

With  spears  from  the  west,      and  with  swords  from  France. 

The  berserks  were  howling,      the  wolf-coats  bawling  ; 
Swords  were  clashing  ;      war  was  in  full  swing.2 

So  too  in  Hrafnsmal  the  king's  ships  are  briefly  described  with  an 
eye  to  their  master's  wealth  and  power  : 

Deep  ships  he  commands 
With  reddened  stripes      and  crimson  shields, 
With  tarred  oars      and  foam-splashed  awnings. 

The  ship  reveals  the  man,  and  a  finely  decked  ship  is  testimony  to 
its  captain's  greatness. 

Ships  may  sometimes  sail  in  unfamiliar  seas  and  encounter 
unaccustomed  dangers.  Then  the  old  mechanism  has  to  be 
refurbished,  and  the  formulae  adapted  to  new  uses.  A  modern 
Russian  bard  attempts  such  a  task  in  telling  of  the  adventures  of 
the  Russian  ship  Chelyuskin  in  the  Arctic.  Though  the  theme  is 
contemporary,  the  treatment  is,  as  far  as  possible,  traditional. 
When  the  ship  sails  into  the  ice-floe,  the  captain  faces  danger  in  a 
truly  heroic  spirit : 

There,  when  evil  enemies  encountered  them, 

Evil  enemies,  swimming  blocks  of  ice, 

Long  did  they  fight  with  those  unfriendly  ones  ; 

They  could  not  in  any  way  escape  their  blows. 

Then  a  blow  struck  the  Chelyuskin  on  the  nose, 

The  timber  broke,  the  water  poured  in  ... 

Beard-to-the-knees,  Captain  Voronin, 

Did  not  wince  at  that  blow, 

At  the  blow  of  that  unfriendly  rock. 

Beard-to-the-knees  began  to  give  orders, 

Captain  Voronin  began  to  give  commands, 

That  quickly,  very  quickly,  all  should  be  mended  ; 

He  summoned  the  master-locksmiths, 

By  the  speed  of  the  masters  all  was  repaired  ; 

And  the  ship  flew  forward  on  her  way 

In  the  ocean-sea  of  ice.3 

Here  an  unprecedented  situation  is  presented  in  words  derived 
from  quite  a  different  world,  but  the  treatment  of  the  blocks  of  ice 

1  Kershaw,  p.  90.  2  Idem,  p.  83. 

3  Nechaev,  p.  287.    No  name  is  given  for  the  author  of  the  poem. 

209 


HEROIC  POETRY 

as  attacking  enemies  and  of  the  captain  and  his  men  as  heroes 
fighting  against  fierce  antagonists  gives  a  new  interest  to  the  theme 
of  sailing  in  dangerous  seas. 

A  fifth  conventional  theme  is  that  of  horses  and  riding.  The 
earliest  exponent  of  this  is  Homer,  whose  heroes  do  not  ride 
horses  but  drive  them  in  chariots.  So  they  go  to  battle,  where  the 
chariot  plays  a  large  part,  or  in  peace-time  visit  their  friends. 
Homer  likes  sometimes  to  give  attention  to  the  preparation  of  a 
chariot  before  it  goes  out.  If  he  usually  does  this  in  a  brief  and 
even  perfunctory  way,  he  once  at  least  devotes  some  care  to  it. 
When  Priam  sets  out  to  ask  Achilles  for  the  body  of  Hector, 
sixteen  lines  are  given  to  the  preparation  of  his  chariot.  Priam's 
sons  take  down  the  chariot  from  where  it  is  propped  against  a  wall, 
take  down  the  yoke,  and  fasten  the  yoke-band  to  it,  being  careful 
to  see  that  the  knot  is  secure.1  The  careful  description  is  not 
necessary  to  the  story,  but  it  provides  a  dignified  start  and  assumes 
that,  since  Priam  is  embarking  on  an  important  errand,  anything 
concerned  with  it  is  interesting.  Equally,  when  travellers  reach 
their  destinations,  Homer  tells  how  they  dismount  from  their 
chariots  and  look  after  their  horses.  The  chariot  is  propped  up  on 
end  against  a  wall,  and  the  horses  are  given  corn  and  barley.2 
Homer  prefers  to  dwell  on  the  beginning  and  end  of  such  journeys 
and  says  little  about  the  journeys  themselves,  which  he  usually 
dismisses  briefly  in  some  such  line  as  — 

Then  did  he  whip  up  the  horses,  and  they  sped  eagerly  onward.3 

The  important  thing  in  this  case  is  to  mark  the  start  and  the  end 
of  a  journey,  and  this  is  done  simply  and  circumstantially. 

Homer's  method  is  paralleled  in  various  other  countries.  When 
a  hero  sets  out  on  his  horse,  we  often  hear  something  about  his 
start,  as  when  the  Serb  hero,  Marko  Kraljevid,  sets  out  : 

Then  did  he  go  down  into  his  stable, 
And  made  ready  his  stout  charger  Sarac. 
First  he  covered  him  with  a  grey  bear-^kin, 
Then  he  bridled  him  with  a  steel  bridle  ; 
And  he  hung  his  heavy  mace  upon  him, 
With  a  sword  on  either  side  about  him, 
Flung  himself  upon  the  back  of  Sarac.* 

Russian  poets  give  fewer  details  but  seldom  fail  to  say  something 
about  saddling  a  horse  before  the  hero  goes  out,  as  Dyuk  does 
before  his  contest  with  Churilo  : 

1  //.  xxiy,  265  ff.  2  Od.  iv,  39  ff. 

3  Ibid,  iii,  494.  4  Karad2i2,  ii,  p.  231. 

2IO 


THE  MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE 

Young  Dyuk  Stepanovich,  the  prince's  son, 
Went  into  the  spacious  courtyard, 
And  with  his  own  hands  saddled  his  good  horse  ; 
He  saddled  it  and  made  it  ready.1 

So  too  his  rival,  the  stylish  Churilo,  also  saddles  his  horse : 

He  saddles  it  with  twelve  saddles, 
He  girds  it  with  twelve  girths, 
The  girths  were  of  silk, 
And  the  girth-straps  of  gold.2 

When  the  Kalmuck,  Khongor,  gets  ready  for  a  dangerous  expedi- 
tion, the  saddling  of  his  horse  is  an  important  event : 

At  the  door  of  the  hall 

He  began  to  saddle  his  restive  hot  horse. 

He  straightened  and  put  on  it  a  black  saddle-cloth. 

On  the  four  spans  of  tall  withers 

He  laid  a  saddle  of  forged  gold, 

With  a  front  arch  of  dull  silver, 

With  a  saddle-tree  of  black  sandal  wood. 

He  put  on  a  breast-plate  of  yellow  silk, 

Fitting  it  to  the  black  breast-muscles. 

He  clothed  its  tail  in  a  cover 

Twenty-five  times  as  long  as  a  swan's  neck.3 

In  each  case,  whether  shortly  or  at  length,  the  poet  goes  through 
the  routine  of  telling  how  a  horse  is  saddled,  and  in  so  doing  adds 
something  to  our  conception  of  the  rider's  character  and  purpose. 
As  the  rider  goes  on  his  way,  nothing  much  may  happen  to 
him,  but  few  poets  will  be  entirely  silent  about  it.  They  may  say 
no  more  than  a  very  few  words  to  indicate  that  so  far  all  goes 
according  to  plan,  as  the  Ossete  poets  do  in  their  tales  of  Amran 
and  his  brothers.  For  them  the  merest  reference  suffices,  like 

Day  began  to  shine.     They  rode  on, 
or 

The  brothers  went  on^  further, 
or 

They  rode  on.     They  came  to  a  valley. 4 

This  is  the  minimum  that  such  poetry  demands,  and  it  suffices  to 
keep  the  audience  aware  of  what  is  happening.  So  even  the  Norse 
poets  of  the  Elder  Edda,  whose  concentrated  art  usually  leaves  little 
place  for  the  mechanics  of  narrative,  sometimes  pause  to  tell  of 
someone  riding  and  to  add  some  small  vivid  touch,  as  when 

1  Rybnikov,  i,  p.  108.  2  Nechaev,  p.  133. 

3  Dzhangariada,  p.  114  ff.  4  Amran,  pp.  45,  86,  49. 

211 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Guthrun  relates  how  she  and  the  Sons  of  Gjuki  come  to  Atli's 

hall: 

Soon  on  horseback      each  hero  was, 

And  the  foreign  women      in  wagons  faring  ; 

A  week  through  lands      so  cold  we  went ; l 

or  when  the  heroes  arrive  at  the  hall  and  ride  into  it  in  all  their 
clatter  and  splendour : 

Great  was  the  clatter      of  gilded  hoofs 

When  Gjuki's  sons      through  the  gateway  rode  ;  2 

or  the  sons  of  Guthrun  set  out  on  their  fell  mission  to  take  venge- 
ance from  Jormunrek  for  the  death  of  Svanhild  : 

From  the  courtyard  they  fared,      and  fury  they  breathed  ; 

The  youths  swiftly  went      o'er  the  mountain  wet, 

On  their  Hunnish  steeds,      death's  vengeance  to  have. 3 

In  each  of  these  cases  something  is  added,  whether  to  show  the 
length  and  character  of  the  journey  or  the  pride  of  the  horsemen 
or  the  spirit  in  which  they  ride.  The  brief  sketches  give  a 
momentary  glimpse  of  what  happens  and  fit  into  the  general 
pattern  of  the  story.  The  poets  keep  their  plots  continuous  by 
using  this  almost  mechanical  device,  but  at  the  same  time  succeed 
in  making  even  the  mechanics  significant. 

As  the  rider  goes  on  his  road,  he  may  pass  over  country  which 
the  poet  thinks  worthy  of  mention,  and  the  way  in  which  the 
rider  and  horse  take  it  throws  light  on  them.  So  when  Dobrynya 
is  in  a  great  hurry  to  reach  Kiev  before  his  wife  marries  Alyosha, 
he  makes  great  demands  of  his  horse  : 

He  took  his  silken  whip, 

He  beat  his  horse  about  the  legs, 

About  his  legs,  his  hind  legs, 

So  that  his  horse  set  off  at  a  gallop, 

From  mountain  to  mountain,  from  hill  to  hill, 

Leaping  rivers  and  lakes, 

Stretching  his  legs  in  full  stride. 

It  is  not  a  bright  falcon  in  full  flight, 

It  is  a  noble  young  man  racing  in  his  course.* 

Though  this  is  a  special  occasion  and  Dobrynya  is  in  a  great 
hurry,  the  poet  tells  of  his  passage  much  as  any  Russian  poet  tells 
of  heroes  riding  even  though  they  have  nothing  much  to  hurry 
about.  The  point  is  that,  when  heroes  mount  their  horses,  this 
is  the  way  in  which  they  should  proceed.  The  Russian  tradition 

1  Guthrunarkvitha,  ii,  36,  1-3.  2  Oddriinargrdtr,  26,  1-2. 

3  Hamthismdly  12.  4  Rybnikov,  i,  p.  165  ff. 

212 


THE  MECHANICS  OF  NARRATIVE 

is  indeed  remarkably  stereotyped  in  this  as  in  other  matters,  and 
it  is  perhaps  profitable  to  contrast  with  it  what  a  Kara- Kirghiz 
poet  does  when  his  heroes  ride  across  country.  When  Alaman  Bet 
and  the  young  Syrgak  ride  in  front  of  the  army,  the  poet  has  an 
eye  for  the  country  through  which  they  pass  and  its  forbidding 
nature : 

On  inaccessible  mountain  peaks, 

From  summit  to  summit, 

Where  waters  flow  not  on  the  road, 

And  no  signs  of  grass  can  be  found, 

Where  the  eyes  see  no  feathered  things, 

On  the  dented  spurs  of  the  mountains, 

Where  the  heat  fails  not  all  year  round, 

Along  the  banks  of  dried-up  rivers, 

On  the  sands  of  desolate  valleys, 

Alaman  Bet,  son  of  Aziz  Khan, 

Together  with  young  Syrgak, 

By  ways  long  known  to  them 

Hastened  forward,  spared  not  their  horses, 

Without  halting,  for  many  days.1 

Here  the  Kara-Kirghiz  poet  follows  the  tradition  of  his  national 
art  in  using  details  to  make  a  picture  more  real  and  more  interest- 
ing. He  describes  a  convincing  landscape,  such  as  we  might 
expect  to  lie  on  the  long  road  from  the  Tien-Shan  to  China  and 
worthy  of  the  heroes  who  pass  through  it  and  think  little  of  its 
dangers.  They  have  indeed  a  task  to  do,  and  their  journey  is 
part  of  it.  So  it  deserves  some  attention,  and  the  poet  is  right  to 
make  much  of  it. 

The  theme  of  riding  is  not  confined  to  single  riders  or  to  pairs. 
There  are  times  when  whole  companies  and  even  armies  go  out  on 
horseback  and  demand  that  something  should  be  said  about  them. 
The  mere  effect  of  numbers  is  impressive  enough,  and  much  is 
added  when  the  riders  are  proud  and  splendid  in  their  best 
accoutrements.  So  the  Song  of  Roland  can,  when  grand  events 
are  afoot,  rise  to  the  occasion  in  high  style.  The  Saracens  make 
an  impressive  show  when  Roland  and  Oliver  first  see  them  at 
Roncesvalles : 

Fair  shines  the  sun,  the  day  is  bright  and  clear, 
Light  burns  again  from  all  their  polished  gear. 
A  thousand  horns  they  sound,  more  proud  to  seem  ; 
Great  is  the  noise,  the  Franks  its  echo  hear.2 

Later,  when  Charlemagne  comes  back  to  the  battlefield  and 
prepares  to  fight  Baligant's  army,  the  different  Prankish  columns, 

1  Manas,  p.  236.  2  Roland,  1002-5. 

213 


HEROIC  POETRY 

all  of  them  on  horseback,  are  treated  with  some  attention  and  each 
receives  some  little  distinguishing  touch,  like  the  Normans,  whose 
horses  "  charge  and  prance  ",'  or  the  Bretons  who  "  canter  in  the 
manner  of  barons  ".2  The  poet  knows  something  about  cavalry 
and  sees  that  the  muster  of  a  great  army  before  its  advance  into 
Spain  is  an  occasion  for  display.  When  all  are  gathered,  the 
forward  movement  begins  with  some  majesty  : 

That  Emperor  canters  in  noble  array, 

Over  his  sark  all  of  his  beard  displays  ; 

For  love  of  him  all  others  do  the  same, 

Five  score  thousand  Franks  are  thereby  made  plain, 

They  pass  those  peaks,  those  rocks  and  those  mountains, 

Those  terrible  narrows  and  those  deep  vales, 

Then  issue  from  the  passes  and  the  wastes 

Till  they  come  into  the  March  of  Spain.3 

This  is  a  military  movement  on  a  big  scale  and  requires  careful 
handling.  The  poet  gives  force  and  speed  to  it  and  creates  his 
own  simple  poetry  for  a  large  army  of  horsemen  on  the  move. 

With  matters  such  as  arrivals  and  departures,  getting  up  and 
going  to  bed,  feasts  and  celebrations,  sailing,  and  riding,  heroic 
poets  fill  in  the  interstices  between  their  more  impressive  and 
exciting  occasions.  They  may  use  these  themes  simply  to  keep 
the  narrative  going,  to  make  clear  what  happens,  and  to  maintain 
an  air  of  reality.  They  may  also  use  them  for  their  own  sake, 
because  even  simple  matters  of  this  kind  may  have  a  quiet  charm 
and  be  interesting  in  their  own  right,  f  So  far  they  pursue  the 
mechanics  of  narrative  and  are  perfectly  justified  in  doing  so  in  an 
art  which  seeks  to  create  a  complete  world  of  its  own,  sufficiently 
like  the  familiar  world  to  cause  no  embarrassment.  But  sometimes 
they  advance  beyond  these  obvious  needs  and  turn  a  familiar  theme 
into  something  else,  which  sheds  light  on  the  hero's  character  or 
surroundings  or  has  its  own  excitement  from  what  happens.  In 
this  respect,  as  in  others,  heroic  poetry  uses  its  traditional  devices 
freely  and  fruitfully,  but  feels  no  obligation  to  confine  itself  within 
them.  ^  If  the  poet  chooses,  he  can  leave  tradition  behind  and  try 
something  new  which  has  none  the  less  a  traditional  background. 

1  Roland,  3047.  2  Ibid.  3054.  3  Ibid.  3121-8. 


214 


VI 

THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION: 
LANGUAGE 

ALMOST  without  exception,  heroic  poetry  is  in  the  first  place 
intended  not  for  a  reading  but  for  a  listening  public.  Famous 
poems  may  be  written  down  to  preserve  them  from  oblivion,  and 
in  due  course  there  comes  a  time,  as  came  in  France  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  when  reading  begins  to  have  a  vogue.  But 
this  comes  when  heroic  poetry  has  passed  its  prime  and  begun 
to  turn  into  something  else.  Both  ancient  and  modern  evidence 
points  to  the  conclusion  that  the  heroic  poet  composes  what  is 
to  be  heard  and  that  his  whole  technique  presupposes  an  audi- 
ence listening  to  recitation.  Ancient  poems,  like  the  Odyssey 
and  Beowulf,  show  how  bards  at  the  courts  of  Odysseus  and 
^  lays  of  heroic  action  to  appreciative  companies 


_^ 

Mediaeval  French  andTfpamsh  epics  abound  in  lines  in  which 
the  poet  addresses  his  public  with  such  phrases  as  "  I  shall  tell 
you  "  or  "  you  will  see  "  or  "  you  have  heard  ".*  Modern  ob- 
servers among  the  Jugoslavs,  Russians,  Greeks,  Albanians,  Ainus, 
and  Asiatic  Tatars  report  that  it  is  the  regular  practice  to  chant 
or  recite  a  heroic  poem,  and  collections  of  such  poems  are  made, 
directly  or  indirectly,  from  those  who  so  perform  them.(^  An  art 
which  works  in  these  conditions  is  necessarily  different  from  one 
which  caters  for  books  and  reading.  It  has  its  own  peculiarities 
of  technique  which  arise  from  the  way  in  which  the  bard  has  to 
work.  He  has  before  him  an  audience,  often  large,  which  listens 
to  him,  and  he  has  to  keep  its  attention,  to  make  everything  clear 
and  interesting,  and,  above  all,  not  to  lose  the  thread  of  his  narra- 
tive. Though  in  matters  of  detail  a  listening  public  is  less  exact- 
ing than  individual  readers,  it  is  more  exacting  about  main 
episodes.  It  cannot  skip  the  dull  parts,  and  it  insists  on  under- 
standing what  is  told.j 

r  Recitation  is  the  normal  practice  of  heroic  poetry  because  the 
societies  in  which  it  was  born  and  bred  were  originally  illiterate. 
But  it  is  no  longer  confined  to  totally  illiterate  peoples.  Indeed, 
in  the  modern  world  totally  illiterate  peoples  seem  not  to  have 

1  Cid,  2764,  3671,  1423  ;   Aliscans,  249  ;    GUI  de  Bourgogne,  4302;    cf.  R. 
Men^ndez  Pidal,  Poesia  juglaresca  y  juglares,  p.  330  ff. 

215  P 


HEROIC  POETRY 

passed  beyond  the  pre-heroic  stage,  if  they  have  even  reached  so 
far,  while  heroic  poetry  is  common  among  peoples  who  know 
something  of  writing.^The  different  texts  of  Gilgamish,  whether 
Babylonian  or  Hittite  or  Assyrian,  come  from  societies  in  which 
the  cuneiform  script  was  used  not  merely  for  religious  and  legal 
texts  but  for  hymns  and  annals.  Homer  mentions  writing  only 
once,  and  then  in  a  mysterious  way,  when  he  tells  of  the  "  deadly 
signs  "  which  Proetus,  king  of  Corinth,  writes  in  a  "  folded  tablet  " 
and  sends  to  the  king  of  Lycia  with  intent  to  compass  the  death  of 
Bellerophon ; *  but  this  is  probably  a  traditional  feature  in  an 
ancient  story  and  does  not  discredit  the  probability  that  writing 
existed  in  Homer's  time  and  that  he  must  have  known  its  use.  In 
the  Norse  Atlamdl  Guthrun  tries  to  communicate  with  her 
brothers  in  a  runic  message  and  warn  them  of  the  doom  which 
Atli  is  preparing  for  them,  but  Vingi  tampers  with  the  text  and 
prevents  it  from  being  understood.2  Nor  in  modern  times  are 
heroes  necessarily  illiterate.  The  Kara-Kirghiz  Alaman  Bet  has 
no  difficulty  in  reading  the  Koran  when  he  becomes  a  Moslem.3 
Russian,  Jugoslav,  and  Armenian  heroes  commonly  write  and  read 
letters.  (Heroic  poetry  often  exists  in  societies  where  writing  is 
practised  in  some  form.  It  can  even  exist  by  the  side  of  a  written 
literature  which  is  contained  in  books!)  Roland  mentions  both 
Homer  and  Virgil,4  and  it  is  possible  that  Virgil  wa§jLUQwn,  if 
only  indirectly,  to  the  author  of  ffeowu^J^^f  course  the  bards 
themselves  tend  to  stand  outside"  the  world  of  letters  and  to  rely 
on  the  spoken  word,  but  even  this  rule  has  its  exceptions.  There 
are  in  Russia  to-day  singers  of  traditional  songs,  like  Marfa 
Kryukova  and  Peter  Ryabinin-Andreev,  who  are  fond  of  reading 
but  none  the  less  compose  poems  for  recitation  in  the  old  manner, 
partly  because  many  among  their  audiences  are  illiterate,  but 
chiefly  because  this  kind  of  recitation  is  expected  of  them.  (Heroic 
poetry  aims  at  recitation,  and  this  explains  many  of  its  peculiarities. 
tMuch  heroic  poetry  is  not  only  recited,  but  actually  improvised. 
There  are  degrees  and  kinds  of  improvisation,  and  there  are  places 
where  poets  have  passed  beyond  it  to  a  more  considered  kind  of 
composition,  but  improvisation  is  common  and  may  well  be  the 
fundamental  method  of  performance.  The  bard  who  recites  a 
poem  composes  it  in  the  act  of  recitation.)  This  state  of  affairs 
would  seem  almost  incredible  if  it  were  not  guaranteed  by  impec- 
cable witnesses.  It  is  the  normal  practice  among  Russian  bards. 
Gilferding  observed  that  among  the  peasants  of  Lake  Onega  a 

1  //.  vi,  168-70;  cf.  Lorimer,  p.  474.  2  Atlamdl,  i. 

3  Radlov,  v,  p.  ii.  4  Roland,  2616.  5  Klaeber,  p.  cxxi. 

2l6 


THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION:    LANGUAGE 

singer  never  sang  a  by  Una  twice  in  the  same  way,1  and  his  evidence 
is  confirmed  by  Rybnikov,  who  took  down  songs  from  the  same 
singers  on  the  same  subjects  as  those  heard  by  Gilferding,  and  we 
can  examine  the  two  sets  of  records,2  For  instance,  the  famous 
bard,  Trofim  Grigorevich  Ryabinin,  sang  twenty-four  lays  to 
Rybnikov  and  eighteen  to  Gilferding,  and  the  subjects  of  eight  of 
these  are  common  to  both  lists,  but  not  one  poem  is  identical  with 
another.  The  main  outlines  are  the  same,  but  the  details  and  the 
length  differ,  and  the  explanation  is  that  Ryabinin  created  a  new 
version  of  a  poem  each  time  that  he  recited  it.  He  did  not  recall 
a  text  verbally  but  improvised  a  fresh  text  round  certain  fixed 
features  in  the  story.  Often  enough  the  difference  between  two 
versions  lies  mainly  in  the  varying  space  given  to  conventional 
themes  and  makes  practically  no  difference  to  the  total  effect,  but 
this  is  not  always  the  case.  When  Ryabinin  sang  of  Ilya  of  Murom 
and  Tsar  Kalin  to  Rybnikov  3  he  gave  quite  a  different  story  from 
that  which  he  sang  later  to  Gilferding.4  The  first  version  has  289 
verses,  and  the  second  616,  and  the  difference  of  scale  is  to  be 
explained  by  more  than  a  mere  expansion  of  common  themes.  The 
second  poem  has  different  episodes  and  almost  a  different  temper. 
What  is  true  of  Ryabinin  is  true  of  other  bards  from  the  same 
district  whose  poems  were  recorded  by  Rybnikov  and  Gilferding, 
and  the  evidence  is  conclusive  that  here  at  least  the  bard  does  not 
repeat  himself  exactly  but  improvises  afresh  on  each  occasion. 

Evidence  for  the  practice  of  Jugoslav  bards  is  not  so  complete 
as  it  is  for  Russian,  but  it  indicates  a  similar  state  of  affairs. 
Matthias  Murko  examined  the  methods  of  performance  in  Jugo- 
slavia and  discovered  that  the  bards  rely  mainly  on  improvisation.5 
A  bard  may  hear  a  poem  only  two  or  three  times  and  be  able  to 
reproduce  it,  but  he  will  not  do  so  in  the  same  words.  To  some 
extent  each  performance  is  a  new  creation.  No  bard  repeats  the 
same  poem  exactly  word  for  word.  Indeed  in  the  course  of  years 
he  may  introduce  such  changes  into  a  subject  that  it  becomes 
unrecognisable.  As  he  gets  used  to  a  theme,  he  may  expand  and 
enrich  it  until  his  final  version  is  two  or  three  times  as  long  as  his 
first.  These  observations  were  confirmed  by  Milman  Parry  in  the 
thirties  of  this  century.  He  too  found  that  each  performance  by 
a  poet  produced  what  was  virtually  a  new  poem.  Indeed,  when  he 
asked  a  poet  to  recite  the  same  poem  in  the  same  words  as  on  a 
previous  occasion,  the  poet  agreed  to  do  so  but  produced  in  fact 

1  Gilferding,  i,  p.  32.  2  Chett£oui,  p.  26  ff. 

3  Rybnikov,  i,  p.  35  ff.  4  Gilferding,  ii,  No.  75. 

5  Zeitschr.  d.  Vereins  f.  Volkskunde  (Berlin,  1909),  p.  13  ff.  ;  Sitzungs- 
berichte  d.  k.  k.  Akademie  in  Wien,  Bd.  176  (1914-15). 

217 


HEROIC  POETRY 

something  different.  It  is  of  course  possible  that  some  poems 
have  reached  a  kind  of  finality,  and  no  one  would  dare  to  give  them 
a  new  form.  But  that  is  because  they  have  been  written  down  and 
circulated  and  become  widely  known.  Their  texts  have  been 
fixed,  and  they  have  passed  into  a  national  heritage.  This  is  the 
case  with  some  of  the  poems  about  Kosovo  which  Vuk  Karadzid 
published  in  1814.  They  have  become  classics,  but  that  does  not 
mean  that  Karadzic  himself  repeated  them  from  memory.  The 
poems  which  he  published  were  collected  by  him  from  the  bards 
who  sang  them.  Nor  indeed  has  his  collection  prevented  new 
poems  from  being  composed  on  the  same  subjects.  Such  are  still 
composed,  as  Murko  and  Parry  found.  The  Jugoslav  art  of  heroic 
poetry  is  still  one  of  improvisation. 

A  third  example  of  improvisation  can  be  found  among  the 
Kara-Kirghiz.  Their  poetry  was  taken  down  by  the  great  scholar, 
V.  Radlov,  in  the  last  forty  years  of  the  nineteenth  century.  His 
account  of  what  happens  is  explicit: 

Every  minstrel  who  has  any  skill  at  all  always  improvises  his  songs 
according  to  the  inspiration  of  the  moment,  so  that  he  is  not  in  a 
position  to  recite  a  song  twice  in  exactly  the  same  form.  .  .  .  The 
improvising  minstrel  sings  without  reflection,  simply  from  his  inner 
being,  that  which  is  known  to  him  as  soon  as  the  incentive  to  sing 
comes  from  without,  just  as  the  words  flow  from  the  tongue  of  a 
speaker  without  his  producing  intentionally  and  consciously  the  articu- 
lations necessary  to  produce  them,  as  soon  as  the  course  of  his  thoughts 
requires  this  or  that  word.1 

Radlov  describes  authentic  improvisation  and  notes  some  import- 
ant results  which  follow  from  it.  The  minstrel  needs  an  audience 
to  get  him  going.  In  its  presence  he  finds  that  his  imagination 
works  freely.  The  more  the  audience  enjoys  his  skill  in  choosing 
the  right  expressions,  the  better  he  does  his  work.  The  way 
in  which  a  Kara- Kirghiz  bard  works  is  described  by  the  Russian 
traveller  Venyukov,  who  was  attached  to  an  expeditionary  column 
in  1860  and  watched  with  admiration  the  extemporary  perform- 
ance of  a  minstrel : 

Every  evening  he  attracted  round  him  a  crowd  of  gaping  admirers, 
who  greedily  listened  to  his  stories  and  songs.  His  imagination  was 
remarkably  fertile  in  creating  feats  for  his  hero  —  the  son  of  some  Khan 
—  and  took  most  daring  flights  into  the  regions  of  marvel.  The  greater 
part  of  the  rapturous  recitation  was  improvised  by  him  as  he  proceeded, 
the  subject  alone  being  borrowed  from  some  tradition.2 

1  Radlov,  v,  p.  xvi ;  cf.  Chadwick,  Growth,  iii,  p.  182. 

2  J.  and  R.  Michell,  The  Russians  in  Central  Asia  (London,  1865),  p.  186 ; 
cf.  Chadwick,  Growth,  iii,  p.  179. 

2l8 


THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION:    LANGUAGE 

This  art  is  still  practised  among  the  Kara-Kirghiz,  and  recent 
versions  of  the  epic  of  Manas  were  taken  down  from  two  bards  who 
improvised  as  they  recited.  Improvisation  is  the  first  and  earliest 
form  of  heroic  poetry,  and  has  left  its  marks  on  the  whole  tech- 
nique of  the  art. 

The  Russians,  Jugoslavs,  and  Kara-Kirghiz  show  how  im- 
provisation works,  and  we  are  well  informed  about  their  methods. 
But  they  are  not  the  only  people  to  practise  it.  Though  full 
evidence  is  lacking,  there  is  little  doubt  that  this  kind  of  improvisa- 
tion is  practised  also  by  the  Ossetes,  the  Kalmucks,  the  Yakuts, 
the  Ainus,  and  the  modern  Greeks.  When  examples  of  their 
poems  exist  in  many  variants,  there  seems  so  little  probability  of 
there  being  any  standard  or  fixed  form  that  we  must  assume 
that  the  minstrel  re-creates  the  traditional  material  in  his  own 
way.  (Indeed,  improvisation  must  have  been  the  normal  practice 
in  any  society  where  the  bard  might  be  called  at  a  moment's 
notice  to  recite  a  poem  on  a  new  subject.  When  Beowulf  routs 
Grendel,  his  action  immediately  becomes  a  subject  for  a  song  by 
Hrothgar's  bard : 

Who  had  made  many  vaunts,      and  was  mindful  of  verses, 

Stored  with  sagas,      and  songs  of  old, 

Bound  word  to  word      in  well-knit  rime, 

Welded  his  lay ;      this  warrior  soon 

Of  Beowulf 's  quest      right  cleverly  sung.1 

If  this  is  not  absolute  improvisation,  it  is  very  close  to  it.  The 
bard  may  have  had  some  warning  of  what  he  has  got  to  do,  but 
he  certainly  has  not  had  time  to  polish  a  complete  poem  in  his 
head.  ^When  Odysseus  at  the  court  of  Alcinous  calls  on  the 
bard,  Demodocus,  for  a  song,  he  tells  him  what  to  sing,  and 
Demodocus,  without  more  ado,  proceeds  to  tell  how  the  Achaeans 
set  fire  to  their  camp  and  embarked  on  their  ships.2  He  is  suffi- 
ciently master  of  his  technique  and  his  material  to  provide  with- 
out preparation  or  pause  a  poem  on  the  recent  subject  for  which 
he  is  asked.  Moreover,  he  seems  to'  work  in  a  special  way,  since 
Alcinous  says  of  him  : 

The  god  has  given  him  singing, 
And  to  give  joy  with  his  song  as  his  spirit  commands  him  to  utter.3 

If  Demodocus*  spirit  urges  him  to  sing,  the  suggestion  is  that  he 
does  not  repeat  the  songs  of  others  or  even  songs  which  he  has 
himself  prepared  previously  but  follows  his  inspiration  wherever 
it  takes  him.  So  too  in  Ithaca  the  bard  Phemius  says  of  himself : 

1  Beowulf,  868-72.  *  Od.  viii,  44-5.  3  Ibid,  xiii,  44-5. 

2IQ 


HEROIC  POETRY 

My  own  teacher  am  I,  and  in  my  soul  God  has  planted 
All  the  approaches  of  song.1 

Phemius  disclaims  any  debt  to  earlier  singers  and  says  that  he  is 
divinely  inspired.  The  word,  of/zcu,  which  he  uses  of  his  songs 
means  literally  "  ways  "  or  "  approaches  "  and  suggests  that  he 
can  approach  any  theme.  Perhaps  even  more  striking  is  the 
passage  in  the  Homeric  Hymn  to  Hermes,  in  which  the  young  god 
begins  to  sing,  e£  avTovxeSfys,2  which  can  only  mean  "  im- 
promptu ".  We  can  hardly  doubt  that  improvisation  was  known 
both  to  Homer  and  to  the  author  ofJBeowulf.  We  need  not  assume 
that  they  themselves  practised  it,  but  their  art  may  well  have  been 
affected  by  it. 

This  evidence  suggests  that  improvisation  is  a  normal  practice 
among  composers  of  heroic  poetry.  The  minstrel,  whether  in 
Jutland  or  Ithaca,  in  Russia  or  Jugoslavia,  learns  his  craft,  includ- 
ing his  stories,  and  creates  a  new  poem  each  time  that  he  performs. 
Naturally  this  demands  special  powers,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that 
minstrels  claim  to  have  supernatural  support.  The  ancient  Greek 
poets  said  that  their  words  came  from  the  Muse.  This  must  mean 
that  in  composition  they  exercised  a  power  akin  in  some  ways  to 
what  modern  poets  call  inspiration,  but  which  they  were  almost 
able  to  summon  at  will  when  they  found  themselves  confronted  by 
an  audience  calling  for  a  song.  Nor  were  they  wrong  in  calling  the 
Muses  the  Daughters  of  Memory  ;  for  such  inspiration  works  only 
because  the  poet  has  memorised  many  devices  and  phrases  which 
help  him  to  compose.  So  Homer  begins  both  the  Iliad  and  the 
Odyssey  with  invocations  to  the  Muse,  whether  to  sing  of  the 
wrath  of  Achilles  or  of  the  man  of  many  wiles.  So  too  Hesiod 
makes  a  similar  claim  when  he  says  that  he  was  taught  poetry  by 
the  Muses,3  when  he  was  keeping  sheep  on  the  slopes  of  Helicon. 
Nor  are  such  claims  confined  to  antiquity,  since,  as  we  have  seen, 
a  Kara- Kirghiz  bard  told  Radlov  that  God  had  implanted  the  gift 
of  song  in  his  heart  and  that  he  could  sing  of  any  theme,  although 
he  had  learned  none  of  his  songs.4  This  remarkable  activity  of  the 
creative  spirit  lies  behind  much  heroic  poetry  and  dictates  to  it 
some  of  its  special  characteristics. 

When  we  say  that  a  poet  improvises,  it  is  important  to  know 
exactly  what  we  mean.  I  It  is  not  a  wild  flood  of  words  which  flows 
from  his  lips  but  an  orderly  stream  which  his  hearers  find  familiar 
in  vocabulary  and  in  metre.  Though  each  version  which  he  gives 
of  a  story  may  differ  in  details  and  turns  of  phrase,  these  details 

1   Od.  xxii,  347-8.  2  Horn.  Hymn,  iv,  55. 

3   Theogony,  22  if.  4  Radlov,  v,  p.  xviii ;   cf.  sup.  p.  41. 

220 


THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION:    LANGUAGE 

come  from  his  repertory  and  are  themselves  formalised  and 
traditional.  Improvisation  is  based  on  what  Radlov  calls  "  ele- 
ments of  production  ".  The  poet  learns  in  the  first  place  a  number 
of  stories  and  becomes  acquainted  with  their  chief  persons  and 
their  main  characteristics ;  these  provide  him  with  the  material 
for  his  work.  Normally  he  restricts  himself  to  these  accepted  and 
familiar  stories,  and,  though  he  may  often  change  them  or  add  to 
them,  they  are  the  basis  of  his  craft.  In  the  second  place  he  learns 
a  large  number  of  formulae,  both  short  and  long,  suited  to  the 
metre  in  which  he  composes,  and  these  enable  him  to  rise  im- 
mediately to  most  needs  that  his  subject  forces  on  him.  These 
formulae  are  in  the  main  traditional ;  for,  once  a  good  formula  has 
been  found,  poets  use  it  freely  without  considerations  of  copyright. 
If  formulae  prove  useful,  they  may  last  for  centuries,  and  there  is 
no  call  to  abandon  them  just  because  they  are  familiar.  Indeed 
their  familiarity  gives  them  a  special  dignity  and  commands 
respect^)  For  instance  the  modern  Russian  minstrel,  Marfa 
Kryukova,  speaks  of  "  stone-built  Moscow  "  in  a  poem  on  a 
contemporary  subject  because  it  is  the  usual  formula  for  any 
reference  to  Moscow  and  occurs  in  countless  poems,  of  which 
the  oldest  known  to  us  is  that  on  the  failure  of  the  Crimean  Tsar, 
as  Richard  James  recorded  it  in  1619. 

Improvised  heroic  poetry  could  hardly  exist  without  formulae. 
The  task  of  composition  would  be  too  difficult  and  too  uncertain 
for  almost  any  bard.  He  could  not  trust  himself  to  complete  a 
poem  without  hesitating  for  a  phrase  or  even  breaking  down  when 
he  began  to  be  tired  or  found  his  concentration  disturbed.  Of 
course,  even  as  it  is,  poets  break  down,  and  the  scholars  who  have 
recorded  the  Russian  byliny  show  how  sometimes  the  bards  forsake 
verse  for  prose,  no  doubt  because  the  strain  of  poetical  composi- 
tion is  too  much  for  them.  But  this  is  a  failure  in  professional 
honour,  and  may  even  do  them  harm,  since  the  case  of  the  Altai 
Tatars,  who  are  said  never  to  listen  again  to  a  bard  who  breaks 
down,1  may  not  be  unique.  But  if  the  bard  has  his  formulae  at  his 
command,  they  will  help  him  to  surmount  almost  any  difficulty. 
His  poem  will  not  always  be  of  the  finest  quality,  but  it  will  at  least 
be  a  poem  so  long  as  his  technique  is  at  work.  For  instance, 
Radlov  records  that  the  Kara- Kirghiz  bard  who  sang  The  Birth 
of  Manas  seemed  not  to  be  at  his  best  or  entirely  at  his  ease  because 
the  subject  was  not  in  his  usual  repertory,2  but  his  command  of 
formulae  enabled  him  to  produce  something  tolerably  interesting 
and  coherent.  The  use  of  formulae  is  fundamental  to  improvised 

1  Kogutet,  p.  7  fi.  2  Radlov,  v,  p.  xiii. 

221 


HEROIC  POETRY 

oral  poetry,  which  could  not  really  exist  without  them.  Of  course 
the  more  skilful  minstrels  not  only  know  more  formulae  than  their 
less  gifted  fellows  but  use  them  more  adroitly  and  even  add  to  their 
number  with  others  of  their  own  creation.  But  the  formula 
remains  the  foundation  of  improvised  poetry. 

A  formula  is  a  set  of  words  which  is  used,  with  little  or  no 
change,  whenever  the  situation  with  which  it  deals  occurs.  It 
may  thus  be  very  short  like  the  familiar  combinations  of  nouns 
and  adjectives  which  occur  in  most  heroic  poetry ;  it  may  be  a 
single  line,  or  it  may  be  a  set  of  lines  up  to  a  dozen  or  so  in  number. 
In  principle  all  these  formulae  are  of  the  same  kind  and  perform 
the  same  function  of  helping  the  poet  to  surmount  such  and  such 
a  need  when  it  occurs.  But  in  practice  formulae  fall  into  at  least 
two  classes.  On  the  one  side  are  the  noun- adjective  combinations, 
like  "  blue  sea  "  or  "  dark  death  ",  in  which  a  noun,  whether  it 
applies  to  a  common  object  or  an  individual  person,  is  usually 
accompanied  by  what  is  called  a  "  fixed  epithet  ".  The  phrase  is 
not  entirely  happy,  since  in  the  first  place  the  noun  may  some- 
times occur  without  its  usual  epithet,  and  in  the  second  place 
it  may  sometimes  have  another  epithet.  But  the  noun-adjective 
combination  has  a  special  character  because  in  it  the  epithet, 
being  formulaic,  performs  no  very  obvious  function  so  far  as  the 
narrative  is  concerned.  It  is  easy  to  call  it  "  decorative  ",  but  that 
is  to  put  too  great  an  emphasis  on  it,  since  we  may  become  so  used 
to  it  that  we  hardly  notice  it  when  it  occurs,  and  in  that  case  there 
is  not  much  point  in  speaking  of  its  decorative  value.  Its  task  is 
to  help  the  poet  in  composition,  and  though  it  hardly  ever  troubles 
us  and  may  have  its  own  charm,  it  is  not  really  useful  so  far  as  the 
story  is  concerned.  On  the  other  hand  there  are  repeated  phrases, 
which  may  be  parts  of  lines,  or  single  whole  lines,  or  sets  of  whole 
lines.  These  differ  from  the  noun-adjective  combinations  in 
being  strictly  functional  and  necessary  to  the  narrative.  They  have 
of  course  their  own  charm  and  may  at  times  have  considerable 
poetical  appeal,  but  their  first  duty  is  to  deal  with  the  machinery 
of  action,  to  tell  how  certain  recurring  events  happen.  Since  these 
events  may  not  be  very  interesting  in  themselves,  little  is  lost  by 
recording  them  in  formulaic  words. 

Not  all  heroic  poetry  shows  these  two  kinds  of  formulaic 
elements  on  the  same  scale.  Indeed  it  may  on  the  whole  be 
divided  into  two  classes.  In  one  the  formulae  are  used  abundantly 
and  follow  certain  rules  ;  in  the  other  there  are  many  traces  of  them 
but  they  are  not  ubiquitous.  To  the  first  class  belong  the  lays  of 
the  Russians,  the  Jugoslavs,  the  Kara-Kirghiz,  the  Kalmucks,  and 

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THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION:    LANGUAGE 

the  Yakuts,  and  no  doubt  an  examination  of  other  languages 
would  show  similar  results.  If  we  can  establish  the  principles  by 
which  they  are  used  in  these  five  languages,  we  should  be  able  to 
see  what  the  formula  does  for  a  large  class  of  poetry,  and  from  that 
we  can  advance  to  consider  the  second  class  in  which  it  is  used 
somewhat  differently. 

Noun-adjective  combinations  seem  to  be  an  ancient  possession 
of  the  Slavonic  peoples.  They  are  already  present  in  the  Tale  of 
Igor's  Raid,  composed  in  1187,  which  speaks  of  "  grey  wolves  ", 
"  open  plain  ",  "  scarlet  shields  ",  "  black  ravens  ",  "  tempered 
sabres  ",  "  green  grass  ",  "  Frankish  steel  ",  and  "  valiant 
retinue  ".  They  are  not  quite  fixed  or  constant,  but  it  is  clear  that 
even  at  this  date  the  poet  felt  the  need  for  them.  Indeed  some  of 
these  combinations  may  be  older  than  this,  since  a  certain  number 
of  them  occur  both  in  Russian  and  Jugoslav  poems  and  may  derive 
from  a  common  ancestry  before  the  Slavonic  peoples  had  been 
divided  into  their  present  branches.  Such  are  "  white  town  ", 
"  white  hand  ",  "  white  face  ",  "  bitter  tears  ",  "  good  hero  ",  and 
"  good  steed  ".  From  this  common  basis  the  Russians  and  the 
Jugoslavs  have  developed  separately  their  own  combinations.  The 
Russians  habitually  speak  of  "  damp  mother  earth  ",  "  free  open 
plain  ",  "  silken  bowstring  ",  "  stone-built  Moscow  ",  "  honeyed 
drinks  ",  "  sweet  food  ",  "  oaken  table  ",  "  blue  sea  ",  "  splendid 
honourable  feast  ",  "  dark  forest ",  "  white  breast  ",  "  rebellious 
head  ",  "  green  garden  "  and  the  like.  The  Jugoslavs  similarly 
speak  of  "  black  earth  ",  "  broad  highway  ",  "  wide  plain  ", 
'*  green  mountains  ",  "  cool  wine  ",  "  sugared  cakes  ",  "  heavy 
maces  ",  "  helpless  children  ",  and  "  skilful  barbers  ".  The  same 
technique  is  used  for  proper  names  whether  of  places  or  of  persons. 
The  Russians  speak  of  "  glorious  city  of  Kiev  ",  "  Novgorod  the 
great  ",  "  glorious  rich  city  of  Volhynia  ",  "  Vladimir,  prince  of 
royal  Kiev  ",  "  Sadko  the  merchant,  the  rich  stranger  ",  "  Ilya  of 
Murom,  the  old  Cossack  ",  "  the  terrible  Tsar,  Ivan  Vasilevich  ", 
"  bold  Alyosha  Popovich  ",  *'  young  Volga  Svyatoslavovich  ",  and 
c<  Tugarin,  the  Dragon's  son  ".  So  too  the  Jugoslavs  speak  of 
"  fair  Miroc  mountain  ",  "  Rudnik  the  white  town  ",  <c  level 
Kragujevac  ",  '*  Vucitrn  the  white-walled  village  ",  "  Vuk  the 
Firedrake  ",  u  the  spiritual  head,  the  Archimandrite  ",  c<  Novak 
Krstovic,  the  swift  champion  of  Montenegro  ",  u  mighty  Philip 
the  Magyar  ".  The  Slavonic  noun-combinations  are  not  in  them- 
selves very  exciting,  but  they  have  an  ancient  lineage  and  show 
how  the  technique  is  used  without  literary  pretences  or  ambitions. 

As  a  counterpart  to  these  European  examples  we  may  set  the 

223 


HEROIC  POETRY 

practice  of  three  Asiatic  peoples.  In  Kara- Kirghiz  poems  noun- 
adjective  combinations  are  extremely  common.  In  addition  to  the 
formulae  for  simple  things  like  "  red  sun  ",  "  tall  horse  ",  "  golden 
bed  ",  "  white  milk  ",  "  sweet  sugar  ",  "  princely  dwelling  ", 
"  strong  brandy  ",  "  high,  black  cap  ",  "  black  sweat  ",  "  white 
breast  ",  "  white  foam  ",  there  are  other  more  elaborate  and  more 
striking  like  "  golden  tent  of  white  camel's  hair  ",  "  leopard-skin 
saddle-cloth  ",  "  waterless  steppe  ",  "  blue  falconer's  drum  ". 
The  chief  heroes  are  distinguished  by  vivid  titles  like  "  Alaman 
Bet  the  tiger-like  ",  "  Adshu  Bai  the  sharp-tongued  >J,  "  Er  Joloi 
with  a  mouth  like  a  drinking-horn  ",  "  bald-pated  Kongyr  Bai  ", 
"  Kanykai,  daughter  of  princes  ",  "  Bakai  Khan,  son  of  the  rich  ", 
"  Sematai,  the  young  hero  ",  while  places  and  peoples  receive  a 
fullness  of  attention  outside  anything  in  Slavonic  poetry,  like 
"  Bokhara  of  the  seven  gates  ",  "  the  jabbering  Chinese  whose 
language  no  one  understands  "  or  "  the  stinking  Kalmucks,  with 
round  tasselled  caps,  who  cut  up  pork  and  tie  it  to  saddles  ".  The 
noun-adjective  combinations  are  extremely  common  and  more 
elaborate  than  in  Slavonic  poetry.  They  have  indeed  developed 
their  own  brilliance.  They  are  not  usually  necessary  to  the  plot, 
but  they  throw  a  sidelight  on  its  events  and  characters. 

Something  similar  can  be  seen  among  the  Kalmucks,  whose 
poetry  abounds  in  formulae  of  a  great  richness  and  variety. 
The  noun- adjective  combinations  include  such  fine  specimens  as 
"  motley  yellow  domes  "  for  tents,  "  silver-bottomed  streams  ", 
"  high  white  mountains  ",  "  saddles  strong  as  an  anvil  ",  "  golden 
yellow  road  ",  "  red  dust  ",  "  humped  earth  ",  "  glancing  eyes, 
proud  with  drinking  ",  "  stance  like  a  grown  sandalwood  tree  ", 
"  setting  fiery  sun  ",  "  old  yellow-headed  swan  ",  "  silken  garment 
worth  a  million  silver  kopecs  ".  Numbers  play  a  mysterious  part 
and  perform  their  own  functions,  as  in  "  land  of  thirty-three  saints  " 
or  "  six  thousand  and  twelve  chosen  warriors  "  of  Dzhangar's 
company.  The  heroes  have  elaborate  Mongolian  titles,  but  are  also 
called  by  simpler  names.  Dzhangar  is  "  khan  "  or  "  ruler  "  or 
"  renowned  "  or  "  terrible  "  ;  Ulan-Khongor  is  "  of  the  red  bay  " 
or  "  the  tower  "  or  "  the  drunken  "  ;  other  warriors  are  "  white 
champion  of  lions  ",  "  blinding  sun  ",  "  red  medley  of  storms  ". 
Places  are  similarly  distinguished,  whether  mountains  like  "  the 
lion  Altai  "  and  "  Samban,  source  of  winds  ",  or  waters  like  "  the 
holy  sea  of  Bumba  "  or  "  the  flowing  stream,  Artai  ".  Indeed  the 
Kalmuck  poems  are  so  loaded  with  formulaic  phrases  that  at  times 
the  action  is  rather  obstructed  by  them,  though  it  is  fair  to  say  that, 
when  a  crisis  comes,  it  is  usually  managed  with  economy  and  speed. 

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THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION:    LANGUAGE 

Like  the  Kara-Kirghiz  poems,  those  of  the  Kalmucks  suggest  a 
people  deeply  interested  in  poetry,  and  this  may  partly  account  for 
this  richness.  But  age  too  may  have  something  to  do  with  it. 
The  Kalmuck  formulae  seem  to  be  of  considerable  antiquity  and 
look  as  if  they  had  been  polished  and  elaborated  with  the  passage 
of  years. 

A  third  Asiatic  people  whose  poetry  abounds  in  noun- adjective 
combination  are  the  Yakuts,  who  use  them  almost  as  abundantly 
as  the  Kara- Kirghiz  and  the  Kalmucks.  Their  favourite  forms  are 
usually  quite  simple,  like  "  black  mother  night  ",  "  red  day  ", 
"  blessed  world  ",  "  iron  pillar  ",  "  silver-breasted  lark  ",  "  good 
horse  ",  "  white  tufted  clouds  ",  "  echoing,  wide  sky  ",  "  silver 
sables  ",  "  mighty  thunder  ",  "  sturdy  tree  ",  "  fiery  star  ",  "  iron 
cradle  ",  "  yellow  butter ".  The  human  characters  are  also 
decorated  with  epithets,  though  these  are  sometimes  woven  into 
their  names  and  are  almost  indistinguishable  from  them.  Still 
there  are  such  cases  as  "  Suodal,  the  one-legged  warrior ", 
"  Karakhkhan,  the  rich  lord  ",  "  Yukeiden,  the  beautiful  white 
butterfly  ",  and  "  Dzhessin,  the  old  warrior  ".  The  Yakut  world 
lies  in  remote  regions  of  Siberia  and  lacks  the  scope  which  the 
Kara- Kirghiz  have  gained  from  their  contacts  with  China,  or  the 
Kalmucks  from  memories  of  the  time  when  they  lived  on  the  edges 
of  Tibet.  Yet  their  poetry  has  the  same  general  character  and 
shows  the  same  main  characteristics,  one  of  which  is  its  frequent 
use  of  noun-adjective  combinations. 

Though  such  combinations  are  to  be  found  not  merely  in  the 
poetry  of  the  peoples  just  examined  but  in  others  as  well,  their 
purpose  is  not  immediately  obvious.  They  are  not  always  elegant 
or  delightful ;  indeed  sometimes  they  are  flat  and  feeble.  Aesthetic 
considerations  cannot  be  the  original  reason  for  their  existence. 
Nor  at  first  sight  are  they  of  great  use  to  the  bard  in  improvisation. 
We  might  think  that  he  could  dispense  with  them,  since  on  the 
whole  they  are  short  and  do  not  carry  him  far.  Of  course  they 
serve  to  keep  clear  the  personality  of  a  man  or  a  woman  or  the 
main  characteristics  of  a  place,  but  that  does  not  explain  why  they 
are  so  commonly  and  so  consistently  used  not  merely  of  people  but 
of  things  and  even  of  very  commonplace  things  which  need  no 
such  means  to  distinguish  them.  It  is  also  true  that  many  of  them 
must  be  traditional,  and  this  may  be  the  reason  why  poets  use  them 
now,  but  it  does  not  explain  why  they  came  into  existence  in  many 
different  countries.  They  must  serve  a  use  in  the  composition  of 
a  poem,  and  the  answer  is  that  they  make  the  poet's  task  easier. 
In  so  far  as  a  noun  qualified  by  an  adjective  takes  longer  to  say 

225 


HEROIC  POETRY 

than  an  unaccompanied  noun,  it  helps  the  poet  and  enables  him 
to  think  ahead  for  just  that  particle  of  time  which  is  necessary  in 
improvising.  They  are  not  his  only  means  for  doing  this,  but  they 
are  a  not  unimportant  means.  By  loosening  the  texture  of  his 
poetry  through  these  largely  otiose  words,  the  poet  can  proceed 
more  calmly  and  more  confidently.  Moreover,  the  formula,  which 
exists  for  this  reason,  serves  a  secondary  purpose.  When  we 
listen  to  the  recitation  of  an  improvised  poem,  the  fixed  phrases 
become  so  familiar  that  we  hardly  notice  them.  When  they  occur, 
our  attention  is  momentarily  slackened  and  our  minds  rested. 
The  formulae  are  important  to  oral  improvised  poetry  because 
they  make  it  easier  for  the  audience  to  listen  as  well  as  for  the  poet 
to  compose. 

When  poetry  abounds  in  noun-adjective  combinations,  it  has 
also  repeated  lines  and  sets  of  lines,  which  are  the  indispensable 
links  in  a  story  and  do  an  unassuming  task  for  it.  Their  frequent 
occurrence  in  the  Russian  byliny  shows  how  the  poets  rely  on  them. 
Indeed  the  Russian  minstrels  seem  to  use  formulaic  phrases  for 
almost  any  ordinary  occasion.  A  man  sets  out  to  do  something : 

He  flung  his  boots  on  his  bare  feet, 
His  fur-cloak  over  his  shoulder, 
His  sable  cap  over  one  ear. 

He  goes  out  for  sport : 

Shooting  geese,  white  swans, 
And  little  feathered  grey  ducks. 

He  destroys  his  enemies  : 

He  trampled  them  down  with  his  horse  and  slew  them  with  his  spear, 
He  trampled  down  and  slew  the  host  in  a  short  time. 

He  abuses  his  horse  :  *• 

"  Ho,  you  food  for  wolves,  you  grass-bag  ; 
Will  you  not  go  on,  or  can  you  not  carry  me  ?  " 

He  rides  into  a  palace  : 

He  entered  the  spacious  court-yard, 

He  stood  his  horse  in  the  middle  of  the  court-yard, 

He  went  into  the  palace  of  white  stone. 


Time  passes : 


Day  after  day,  as  the  rain  falls, 
Week  after  week,  as  the  grass  grows, 
Year  after  year,  as  the  river  flows. 

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THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION:    LANGUAGE 
A  company  of  guests  is  frightened  : 

They  could  not  think  of  a  reply, 

The  taller  of  them  hid  behind  the  lesser, 

And  the  lesser  for  their  part  were  speechless. 

Such  passages,  and  many  others  of  the  same  kind,  are  extremely 
common.  They  may  vary  in  small  respects  from  poet  to  poet,  but 
they  play  a  large  part  in  the  composition  of  byliny.  No  poem  is 
without  them,  and  in  most  they  take  up  considerable  space. 

Much  the  same  can  be  said  of  the  Jugoslav  poems.  Their 
opening  lines  are  highly  conventional  and  standardised.  In 
addition  to  the  stock  themes  of  birds  flying,  warriors  drinking  or 
riding  out,  we  find  such  lines  as 

God  of  mercy,  what  a  mighty  marvel  ! 
or 

In  a  vision  dreamed  a  pretty  maiden 
or 

Rose  a  maiden  early  in  the  morning. 

But  the  great  mass  of  such  formulaic  lines  and  sets  of  lines  are  to 
be  found  in  the  main  episodes  of  the  poems.  They  are  contrived 
to  meet  recurrent  needs,  and  are  in  fact  used  when  such  needs 
arise.  A  well  set-up  man  appears  in  a  standard  guise  : 

Never  was  a  man  of  greater  stature, 
Never  was  a  man  more  broad  of  shoulder  ; 
What  a  knightly  aspect  was  the  hero's  ! 

A  battle  begins  : 

God  in  Heaven,  thanks  for  Thy  great  goodness  ! 

Often  did  the  armies  clash  in  combat, 

In  the  spreading  plainland  match  their  forces. 

It  continues  : 

Many  of  the  army  then  were  slaughtered, 
Filled  with  deep  dismay  were  those  remaining 

A  hero  prepares  to  go  out : 

Then  he  girded  on  his  rich-wrought  sabre, 
And  he  cast  his  wolf-skin  cloak  about  him. 

A  new  day  begins  : 

When  the  day  was  dawning  on  the  morrow. 
An  old  man  is  described  : 

With  a  white  beard  all  his  breast  is  covered, 
And  it  reaches  to  his  silken  girdle. 

227 


HEROIC  POETRY 
A  maiden  praises  a  man  : 

When  he  speaks,  it's  like  a  ringdove  cooing, 

When  he  laughs,  it's  like  the  sun's  warmth  spreading. 

The  Turks  assert  their  domination  : 

Evil  deeds  they  did  throughout  the  country. 

Nor  are  these  formulaic  passages  always  short.  They  sometimes 
extend  to  a  dozen  or  more  lines,  and  often  to  half  a  dozen. 
Jugoslav  formulaic  repetitions  differ  from  the  Russians  in  that  they 
vary  less  from  poem  to  poem  in  minor  details  and  tend  to  follow  a 
strict  model.  But  they  perform  a  similar  function  and  are  indis- 
pensable to  the  mechanics  of  a  story. 

When  we  turn  from  the  European  to  the  Asiatic  poems,  we 
find  very  much  the  same  technique.  The  Kara- Kirghiz  poets 
delight  in  standard  groups  of  lines  and  show  their  usual  indi- 
viduality in  them.  They  use  them  for  such  matters  as  the  coming 
of  night : 

In  the  west  night  fell, 
Ominous  shadows  fell, 

or  for  a  horse  galloping : 

It  flies  from  crest  to  crest 
On  the  white  hot  hills, 
On  the  endless  slopes, 

or  for  the  coming  of  morning  : 

When  the  dawn  of  day  broke, 

And  the  constellation  of  the  Wain  set, 

When  the  sun  rose  up  bright. 

The  ordinary  machinery  of  the  tales  is  usually  dealt  with  in  such 
ways.  But  there  are  other  formulaic  passages  which  are  more 
ingenious  and  adapted  to  less  expected  situations,  as  when  servants 
welcome  a  stranger : 

One  took  his  white  horse, 

One  opened  the  door, 

One  secured  it  after  the  fashion  of  the  Sarts  ; 

Out  of  the  great  golden  chest 

They  brought  strong  brandy  ; 

or  when  a  hero  is  born  : 

His  upper  half  was  of  gold, 
His  lower  half  was  of  silver, 
After  two  days  he  said  "  Mother  ", 
After  seven  days  he  said  "  Father  ". 

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THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION:    LANGUAGE 
or  goes  out  to  track  his  runaway  slaves  : 

Your  steps  I  will  trace 

To  the  waterless  steppe. 

Kudai  will  cause  you  to  come  in  my  way. 

I  will  ride  to  bring  this  about, 

All  alone  against  a  thousand  foes. 

The  Kara- Kirghiz  compose  on  a  large  scale  and  have  plenty  of 
room  for  highly  developed  formulaic  passages.  In  them,  as  in 
their  noun-adjective  combinations,  a  vigorous  and  creative 
tradition  is  at  work. 

The  Kalmuck  art  is  very  similar.  Formulae  are,  if  anything, 
more  abundant  than  in  the .  Kara- Kirghiz  poems  and  are  often 
quite  long.  The  great  hero,  Dzhangar,  is  often  described  in  the 
same  words,  as  he  is  introduced  : 

Under  his  motley  yellow  dome 

He  has  passed  all  his  time, 

As  they  say,  at  the  point  of  his  spear ; 

or  when  he  sits  in  state  : 

Higher  than  everyone, 
On  his  golden  lion  throne. 

His  dwelling  is  praised  in  conventional  form  : 

The  dwelling  of  the  high  ruler, 

A  wonder  of  wonders  in  all  lands  under  the  sun, 

In  all  the  lands  of  the  eight  thousand  khans. 

A  notable  warrior  is  introduced  : 

See  what  a  warrior  commands 
The  seven  circles  around  him. 

When  he  saddles  his  horse 

He  sat  on  his  stallion, 

He  set  his  heavy  bear-skin  on  his  shoulder, 

And  went  forth  to  meet  his  famous  enemy. 

Time  of  day  is  indicated  : 

When  the  yellow  sun  rises  over  the  earth 
or 

In  the  dawn  before  the  sunrise. 

With  such  phrases  and  many  others  like  them  the  Kalmucks  build 
up  elaborate  patterns,  and  at  times  whole  long  passages  are  made  of 
such  formulaic  elements.  Many  of  the  phrases  occur  several 
times  within  a  short  space,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  they  are  the 
poet's  instruments  of  composition. 

229 


HEROIC  POETRY 

The  poetry  of  the  Yakuts  is  equally  rich  in  formulaic  elements 
of  this  kind.  Their  methods  of  narration  is  less  impeded  than 
that  of  the  Kalmucks,  and  their  formulae  tend  to  be  less  detailed, 
but  are  none  the  less  useful.  The  Yakut  stories  are  set  in  a  vast 
land  where  woods  are  haunted  by  demons  and  the  weather  is 
fierce  and  faithless.  So  the  formulae  help  the  presentation  of 
this  natural  setting.  A  thunderstorm  comes  : 

Thunder  roared  above, 

And  heavy  rain  poured  down. 

Night  descends  in  high  style  : 

Shadows  of  black  night  thickened, 
Black  mother-night  began, 
Gray  mother-night  covered  all. 

The  forest  has  its  beauty  and  its  mystery  : 

The  bark  on  it  was  of  silver, 

The  needles  of  gold, 

The  bosses  of  silver,  enormous. 

The  movements  of  characters  are  often  described  in  formulae  : 

Thither  he  departed, 

He  went  straight  to  the  west. 

Even  demons  introduce  themselves  with  an  agreeable  convention  : 

My  songs  are  a  thick  cloud, 
My  cry  snow  and  rain, 
My  chant  a  black  mist, 
My  tidings  a  hurricane  ! 

A  story  ends  simply,  in  some  such  form  as 

Then  they  lived  in  wealth  and  happiness. 

The  circumstances  of  Yakut  poetry  may  be  unusual,  but  its  for- 
mulae are  operated  in  very  much  the  same  way  as  elsewhere. 

These  five  languages,  Russian,  Jugoslav,  Kara-Kirghiz,  Kal- 
muck, and  Yakut,  show  the  formulae  at  work,  whether  in  noun- 
adjective  combinations  or  in  repeated  lines  and  passages.  A  similar 
art  is  practised  by  other  Tatar  peoples  of  Asia,  like  the  Uzbeks, 
by  the  Ossetes,  the  Ainus,  the  modern  Greeks,  the  Albanians,  and 
the  Bulgars.  Indeed  this  seems  to  be  the  normal  technique  for 
poetry  which  is  composed  and  recited  orally,  with  no  thought  of 
being  written  down  or  read.  But  though  this  poetry  abounds  in 
formulae,  it  is  hardly  ever  entirely  formulaic.  It  seems  usually  to 
leave  something  for  the  bard  to  do.  Formulae  are  commonest 
when  he  is  not  very  gifted  or  not  quite  himself  or  forced  to  sing  on 
a  subject  which  he  has  had  little  time  to  prepare. 

230 


THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION:    LANGUAGE 

If  formulae  are  indispensable  to  the  improvising  bard,  they 
are  also  helpful  to  any  listening  audience.  First,  just  as  the  bard 
rests  himself  for  a  fragment  of  a  second  while  he  uses  a  noun- 
adjective  combination,  so  too  the  audience  on  hearing  it  can  also 
ease  its  attention,  since  the  phrase  is  familiar  and  demands  no 
effort  of  comprehension.  Since  listening  to  a  poem  is  by  no  means 
easy  even  for  people  trained  to  it,  any  such  small  help  is  worth 
having.  Secondly,  most  formulae  are  traditional  and  familiar,  and 
their  very  familiarity  makes  the  audience  feel  at  home  and  know 
in  what  world  of  the  imagination  it  is  moving.  When  we  consider 
how  conservative  most  primitive  peoples  are  in  their  tastes  and 
how  much  they  dislike  innovation  on  any  substantial  scale,  we  can 
see  that  they  will  like  to  be  comforted  in  this  way.  If  they  know 
where  they  are,  they  will  enjoy  all  the  more  the  slight  novelties 
which  the  bard  may  introduce  into  his  telling  of  an  old  tale.  For 
this  reason  the  formulae  come  to  be  liked  for  their  own  sake  as  old 
friends,  and  the  omission  of  them  would  leave  the  audience  uneasy 
and  unsatisfied,  as  if  they  had  not  had  their  proper  poetical  fare. 
Thirdly,  if  a  poet  has  mastered  the  old  formulae,  he  can  then,  no 
doubt  with  caution,  proceed  to  invent  new  ones  which  suit  the 
traditional  tone  but  add  something  unfamiliar  to  the  subject.  His 
success  in  this  will  be  judged  by  the  ease  with  which  he  fits  his  new 
formulae  into  the  old  structure,  and  it  is  notable  that,  when  modern 
Russian  bards  introduce  new  formulae  for  modern  characters,  they 
are  careful  to  acclimatise  them  to  the  ancient  technique.  So, 
though  the  existence  of  formulae  is  due  in  the  first  place  to  the 
needs  of  bards  in  improvisation,  their  persistence  and  survival  are 
no  less  due  to  the  demands  of  audiences  who  expect  them,  like 
them,  and  even  need  them  if  they  are  to  respond  fully  to  what  the 
bard  says. 

It  is  clear  that  in  oral  poetry  there  is  also  an  element  of  what 
may  be  called  free  invention.  The  bard  is  so  well  in  control  of 
himself  and  his  tale  that  he  is  able  to  invent  without  pause  for 
thought.  No  doubt  he  has  planned  beforehand  what  he  is  going 
to  say,  and  with  the  tenacious  memory  of  the  unlettered  is  able  to 
carry  it  without  trouble  in  his  head.  But  for  this  he  must  have 
considerable  ability  and  time  to  sort  his  material  out.  He  may  also 
be  assisted  by  the  fact  that  some  subjects  are  so  popular  and  so 
often  treated  that  he  will  know  all  their  main  points  and  be  able  to 
add  improvements  at  his  ease.  Indeed  some  such  explanation  as 
this  may  account  for  the  Jugoslav  poems  on  Kosovo,  which  have 
indeed  certain  formulaic  elements  but  leave  them  behind  for  their 
high  moments.  The  texts,  as  we  have  them,  were  collected  by 

231  Q 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Vuk  Karadzic  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  and 
represent  versions  current  at  that  time.  By  then  their  themes, 
which  may  be  as  old  as  the  fourteenth  century,  were  so  well  known 
that  a  poet  could  easily  leave  formulae  behind  and  pass  to  free 
invention,  especially  as  none  of  these  poems  is  at  all  long,  and  it  is 
easier  for  a  poet  to  invent  freely  when  he  knows  that  only  a  short 
performance  is  expected  of  him.  If  we  compare  these  pieces  with 
some  of  the  long  poems  recorded  by  Milman  Parry  in  1934,  we 
see  a  great  difference  in  the  use  of  formulae.  Parry's  bards  were 
urged  to  sing  a  long  tale  and  did  so  by  employing  formulae  freely. 
With  Karadzic's  bards  it  was  different.  A  poem  of  a  hundred  or 
so  lines  is  more  easily  composed  and  retained  in  the  head  than  a 
poem  of  several  thousand.  In  this  kind  of  poetry  it  is  not  a  question 
of  abandoning  formulae  altogether,  but  of  reducing  the  part 
played  by  them  in  a  short  poem. 

There  is  no  fundamental  or  necessary  reason  why  an  oral  poet 
should  not  supplement  his  traditional  language  with  new  elements 
of  his  own  making.  In  Sagymbai  Orozbakov's  version  of  Manas 
there  are  recurring  phrases  which  are  undeniably  formulaic  but 
look  as  if  they  were  his  own  invention  or  at  least  learned  by  him 
from  someone  who  has  changed  the  old  manner  of  dealing  with 
familiar  subjects.  They  are  not  what  the  poets  known  to  Radlov 
used  in  similar  situations,  and  Orozbakov  shows  that  one  poet  does 
not  necessarily  use  the  same  formulae  as  another.  Perhaps  in 
composing  a  poem  on  a  very  large  scale  he  felt  that  he  must  be 
more  original  and  varied  than  his  predecessors  who  did  not  reach 
a  quarter  of  his  length.  The  coming  of  night  is,  for  instance,  a 
stock  theme  in  Kara- Kirghiz,  as  in  other  heroic  poetry,  but  in 
Orozbakov's  Manas  it  has  a  new  form : 

Rolling  shadows  fell, 
Ominous  night  fell, 
All  grew  deaf  around, 
The  earth  vanished  around.1 

So  too  when  a  great  company  assembles,  it  is  dealt  with  formulaic- 
ally  : 

They  came  from  forty  ends  of  the  earth, 

They  numbered  forty  regiments.2 

These  cases  look  conventional  enough,  and,  though  we  cannot  be 
certain  that  they  are  not  the  poet's  invention,  or  at  least  the 
product  of  the  school  to  which  he  belongs,  they  show  that  even  for 
quite  simple  purposes  it  is  permissible  and  possible  to  produce 

1  Manas,  p.  51.  2  Jbid.  p.  52. 

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THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION:    LANGUAGE 

variant  formulae  which  are  not  those  in  common  use.  Of  course 
their  function  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  conventional  formulae, 
and  we  soon  become  accustomed  to  them  and  treat  them  in  the 
same  way.  If  in  this  case  we  can  compare  new  poems  with  old 
and  establish  the  presence  of  innovations,  it  may  well  be  possible 
that,  if  we  could  do  the  same  in  other  cases,  we  might  find  a  con- 
siderable element  of  invention  even  in  well-worn  and  familiar 
topics.  It  seems  clear  that  in  oral  poetry,  even  when  formulae 
are  common  owing  to  the  requirements  of  improvisation,  there 
remains  a  large  element  of  non-formulaic  language  which  the 
skilful  poet  so  harmonises  with  the  traditional  mannerisms  that 
we  hardly  notice  it.  If  formulae  imply  improvisation,  it  does  not 
rely  wholly  upon  them  but  often  creates  its  own  means  of  ex- 
pression. 

Compared  with  these  poems  the  Homeric  poems  present  a 
special  problem.  No  one  can  dispute  the  formulaic  character  of 
Homer's  language.  Indeed  it  suggests  a  derivation  from  a  long 
tradition  of  oral  composition.  He  abounds  in  both  classes  of 
formulae.  In  the  first  twenty-five  lines  of  the  Iliad  there  are  at 
least  twenty-five  formulae  of  one  kind  or  another,  and  in  the  first 
twenty-five  lines  of  the  Odyssey  there  are  about  thirty- three.1 
Nor  are  these  passages  exceptional ;  they  give  a  fair  sample  of 
how  the  poems  are  composed.  There  is  hardly  a  passage  in  either 
poem  in  which  there  are  not  many  small  formulae,  while  about  a 
third  of  each  poem  consists  of  lines  or  blocks  of  lines  repeated 
elsewhere.  Nor  is  this  a  characteristic  of  Homer  alone ;  it  is  no 
less  true  of  other  poems  like  those  of  Hesiod,  the  Homeric  Hymns, 
and  the  fragments  of  lost  epics.  At  the  start  it  is  clear  that  the 
formula  plays  a  more  important  part  in  ancient  Greek  heroic 
poetry  than  in  any  oral  poetry  which  we  have  examined.  There 
seems  to  be  hardly  any  department  into  which  it  does  not  penetrate. 
It  is  present  equally  in  the  machinery  of  narrative  and  in  the 
highest  flights  of  poetry,  though  here  it  is  managed  with  uncommon 
tact  and  seldom  makes  itself  noticeable.  Homer  clearly  derives 
his  art  from  a  powerful  tradition  which  has  worked  out  formulae 
for  almost  every  occasion,  and  his  task  was  to  make  a  good  use 
of  them. 

Homer's  noun- adjective  combinations  have  a  range  and  a 
variety  unequalled  by  any  other  heroic  poet.  There  is  hardly  a 
person  or  a  thing  which  has  not  got  its  distinguishing  adjective, 
and  many  of  these  have  an  entrancing  appeal.  No  doubt  some  of 
the  epithets  for  his  heroes  are  intended  to  do  no  more  than  tell 

1  Parry,  Studies,  i,  p.  118  ff. 
233 


HEROIC  POETRY 

who  they  are  and  establish  their  credentials  in  our  memories. 
That  is  why  Achilles  is  "  son  of  Peleus  ",  Agamemnon  "  son  of 
Atreus  ",  Odysseus  "  son  of  Laertes  ".  That  too  is  why  Agamem- 
non is  also  "  king  of  men  ",  Nestor  "  the  Gerenian  knight  ",  and 
Eumaeus  "  the  noble  swineherd  ".  Such  epithets  fix  a  character 
and  give  him  his  place  in  the  story.  But  Homer  goes  far  beyond 
this.  Many  of  his  adjectives  are  purely  and  delightfully  decorative. 
Nothing  but  pleasure  is  given  by  such  epithets  as  "  of  the  glancing 
helmet  "  for  Hector,  "  long-robed  "  for  Helen  or  Thetis,  "  white- 
armed  "  for  Hera,  "  cloud-gathering  "  for  Zeus,  "  plague  of  men  " 
for  Ares.  Nor  are  gods  and  heroes  the  only  recipients  of  this 
attention.  All  animals  and  things  are  treated  equally  and  in  each 
case  a  touch  of  poetry  makes  the  phrase  live,  whether  in  the 
"  loudly-resounding  "  or  "  wine-dark  "  or  "  echoing  "  sea,  or 
"  shadowy  mountains  ",  or  "  rosy-fingered  dawn  ",  or  death 
"  who  lays  at  length  ",  or  "  windless  "  sky,  or  "  long-shadowing  " 
spear,  or  "  echoing "  rivers,  or  "  mountain-bred  "  lion,  or 
"  shameless  "  fly,  or  "  windy  "  Troy,  or  Mycenae  "  rich  in  gold  ", 
or  "  hollow  "  Lacedaemon.  Such  epithets,  and  many  others  like 
them,  must  have  been  evolved  by  a  long  process  in  which  poets 
eliminated  much  that  seemed  dull  or  pointless  and  kept  those 
epithets  which  have  both  charm  and  truth.  If  we  compare 
Homer's  noun-adjective  combinations  with  those  of  the  Russian 
or  Jugoslav  poets,  we  find  a  vast  difference  of  quality  between  them. 
While  the  Russian  and  Jugoslav  phrases  are  strictly  useful,  Homer's 
are  not  only  useful  but  imaginative  and  illuminating. 

This  wealth  of  noun-adjective  combinations  is  matched  by  an 
equal  wealth  of  repeated  lines  and  passages.  There  is  hardly  a 
situation  for  which  Homer  has  not  a  formulaic  line  or  passage. 
He  has  them  for  all  the  machinery  of  narrative,  for  speech  and 
answer,  morning  and  evening,  sleeping  and  waking,  weapons, 
ships  putting  to  sea  and  coming  to  land,  feasts  and  sacrifices, 
greeting  and  farewell,  marriage  and  death.  He  has  formulae  for 
what  might  seem  to  be  not  very  common  occurrences  like  the  two 
dogs  who  accompany  a  prince  when  he  goes  out,  the  slave  woman 
with  whom  a  man  will  not  sleep  for  fear  of  his  wife's  anger, 
fruit-trees  that  make  a  pleasant  place,  sea-birds  on  the  shore,  the 
ragged  garb  of  a  beggar,  the  horse-hair  plume  that  nods  on  a 
helmet,  the  stones  of  which  a  house  or  a  wall  is  built,  the  treasure 
that  lies  at  the  bottom  of  a  chest,  the  noise  that  a  key  makes  when 
it  is  turned  in  a  lock.  Moreover,  Homer  uses  his  formulae  with 
an  unexpected  rigour.  The  mechanism  of  the  narrative  is  con- 
veyed through  formulae  which  are  never  altered  so  long  as  the 

234 


THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION:    LANGUAGE 

metrical  requirements  are  the  same.  When  dawn  comes,  it  is 
always : 

Now  when  the  early-born  rose-fingered  Dawn  had  arisen. 
Night  comes : 

When  the  sun  had  gone  down,  and  darkness  had  followed  upon  it. 
A  man  falls  in  battle  : 

Down  he  fell  with  a  crash,  and  loud  rang  his  armour  upon  him. 
A  feast  ends : 

When  they  had  put  from  them  all  desire  for  eating  and  drinking. 
A  man  dies  : 

Then  did  dark-coloured  death  and  powerful  destiny  take  him. 

When  a  formula  meets  his  need,  Homer  uses  it  without  change, 
even  though  it  extends  to  several  lines,  as  when  heroes  get  ready 
their  chariots,  or  their  ships,  or  when  food  is  served,  or  a  sacrifice 
conducted.  The  convention  is  powerful,  and  Homer  observes  it 
rigorously. 

In  dealing  with  noun-adjective  combinations,  which  usually 
occupy  only  part  of  a  line,  Homer  is  equally  strict,  though  he 
follows  different  rules.  Roughly,  as  Milman  Parry  has  shown,1 
it  may  be  said  that  the  formula  in  a  given  case  is  determined  by 
the  needs  of  the  metrical  structure  and  by  the  place  which  the 
formula  has  to  take  in  it.  In  a  given  place  or  part  of  the  line  the 
same  thing  or  person  is  always  represented  by  the  same  formula, 
and  variations  are  determined  entirely  by  what  case  the  appropriate 
substantive  is  in.  There  are,  for  instance,  36  different  noun- 
adjective  combinations  for  Achilles.  The  number  is  large  because 
his  name  is  used  in  all  five  cases,  but  the  use  of  each  combination 
is  decided  by  the  place  which  it  has  to  occupy  in  the  line.  In 
several  hundred  cases  there  are  only  two  exceptions  :  one,  when 
Achilles  is  called  not  770809  WKVS  but  ^eyadv^os,2  the  other  when 
he  is  addressed  not  as  #eofr  emeiVccA*  'AxtAAeu  but  as  Su'^tAc 
<£ai'Si//,'  'AxiAAeu.3  The  same  rule  applies  to  other  persons  and 
things,  and  exceptions  are  very  few.4  The  combination  used  is 
settled  by  its  place  in  the  line  and  its  case,  and  at  that  place  hardly 
any  other  combination  is  used.  Technique  so  described  may  sound 
very  complicated  and  artificial.  We  feel  that  the  poet  must 

1  Vfipithete   traditionnelle  dans  Homere  and  Les  Formules  et  la  metrique 
d*  Homere,  both  Paris,  1928. 

2  //.  xxiii,  1 68.  3  Ibid.^xxii,  216. 

4  Examples  are  discussed  by  Parry  in  ISEpithete  traditionnelle  y  p.  221  ff. 

235 


HEROIC  POETRY 

master  considerable  gymnastics  before  he  can  control  so  curious 
an  art.  But  in  fact  the  Homeric  language  is  not  in  the  least  com- 
plicated to  read.  Homer  is  one  of  the  most  straightforward  and 
direct  of  poets  ;  he  is  seldom  ambiguous  or  obscure,  nor  does  his 
attachment  to  formulae  mean  that  he  is  sometimes  slightly  off 
the  point ;  his  words  flow  with  a  remarkably  natural  movement 
which  presents  a  marked  contrast  to  the  hesitations  and  circum- 
volutions  of  Beowulf.  The  fact  that,  with  all  his  strict  observance 
of  these  rules,  he  is  still  perfectly  easy  and  natural  reflects  the  great- 
est credit  both  on  him  and  on  them.  They  have  clearly  succeeded 
in  their  task  of  making  poetry  easier  for  the  poet,  and  though  no 
doubt  it  took  time  and  labour  to  master  them,  Homer's  years  of 
apprenticeship  were  well  rewarded  by  the  style  which  it  gave  him. 

If  we  compare  Homer's  use  of  language  with  that  of  any  of 
the  peoples  whose  improvised  poetry  we  have  examined,  we  see 
that,  though  it  resembles  them  in  having  its  origin  in  improvisation 
and  serves  similar  ends,  it  differs  in  more  than  one  respect.  We 
cannot  say  that  his  language  is  older  than  any  of  theirs,  since  we 
know  nothing  of  its  beginnings  except  that  they  must  lie  in  a  distant 
past.  But  it  has  certainly  been  organised  for  poetry  to  a  degree 
which  is  not  to  be  found  elsewhere.  This  may  partly  be  due  to  its 
metre.  The  heroic  hexameter,  based  on  the  quantity  of  syllables 
and  formed  on  a  "  falling  "  rhythm  of  six  dactyls,  of  which  the 
last  is  truncated,  is  a  much  stricter  and  more  exacting  metre  than 
those  of  the  Russians,  Jugoslavs,  or  Asiatic  Tatars.  It  has  indeed 
its  licences,  notably  in  its  artificial  lengthening  of  short  syllables 
and  its  occasional  tolerance  of  hiatus  between  vowels,  but  this  only 
emphasises  how  rigorous  it  is  in  other  ways,  and  how  difficult  it  is 
to  fit  the  Greek  language  into  this  demanding  and  exacting  form. 
Now  a  poet  who  improvises  in  a  difficult  metre  is  faced  with  a  much 
sterner  task  than,  say,  a  Russian  poet  whose  line  is  determined 
neither  by  the  quantity  of  syllables  nor  by  their  number  but  by 
accents  which  he  himself  puts  on  in  chanting.  It  follows  that,  in 
order  to  make  improvisation  in  the  Greek  hexameter  possible, 
a  technique  had  to  be  invented  which  provided  minstrels  with 
a  great  array  of  phrases  and  indeed  prepared  them  for  almost 
any  emergency.  That  is  why  Homer  has  far  more  formulae  than 
even  the  most  formulaic  poets  from  other  countries.  For  them 
relatively  easy  metres  allowed  a  degree  of  free  composition ;  for 
the  Greeks  free  composition  was  almost  out  of  the  question,  and 
the  formula  must  always  be  ready  to  help. 

This  difference  of  metre  accounts  for  another  difference, 
which  is  most  marked  between  Homer  and  the  Russian  minstrels, 

236 


THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION:    LANGUAGE 

though  it  is  important  also  between  him  and  the  Jugoslavs. 
Whenever  he  deals  with  a  standard  situation,  he  uses,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  same  form  of  words,  for  the  good  reason  that  these  fit 
the  metre  and  it  would  be  a  waste  of  labour  to  invent  an  alter- 
native form.  Now  the  Russians  are  in  some  ways  more  conven- 
tional than  Homer ;  at  least  they  begin  episodes  with  much  less 
invention  and  variety  than  he  does.  But  in  such  beginnings, 
which  are  a  good  example  of  formulaic  practice,  they  do  not 
confine  themselves  to  a  single  form  of  words  for  a  single  theme. 
They  keep  the  substance  but  make  various  changes  in  the  form. 
An  extremely  common  example  of  such  an  opening  is  the  theme 
of  a  feast  given  by  Prince  Vladimir.  But  this  occurs  with  several 
minor  variations.  Trofim  Ryabinin  begins  his  Ilya's  Quarrel  with 
Vladimir : 

Glorious  Vladimir  of  royal  Kiev, 
He  prepared  a  glorious,  honourable  feast 
For  his  host  of  princes  and  boyars, 
And  glorious,  mighty  powerful  heroes.1 

The  bard  known  as  "  the  Bottle  "  begins  his  Staver  : 

In  the  glorious  city  of  Kiev, 
It  happened  that  gracious  Prince  Vladimir 
Made  a  banquet,  an  honourable  feast, 
For  his  company  of  princes  and  boyars.2 

Another  bard,  L.  Tupitsyn,  begins  his  Dobrynya  and  Vasili, 
Casimir's  Son  : 

By  generous  prince  Vladimir, 

The  little  sun,  the  son  of  Svyatoslav, 

Was  given  an  honourable  feast, 

For  many  knights  and  boyars, 

For  every  bold  woman-warrior, 

For  all  his  gallant  company. 3 

Almost  every  poet  has  his  own  way  of  treating  this  theme,  though 
the  details  which  he  adds  or  omits  are  of  very  little  importance 
either  to  the  poetry  or  to  the  story.  Nor  indeed  do  single  poets 
confine  themselves  to  a  single  form  of  words.  For  instance, 
Ryabinin  begins  his  Dobrynya  and  Vasili,  Casimir's  Son  with  an 
opening  somewhat  different  from  what  he  uses  in  Ilya's  Quarrel 

with  Vladimir : 

By  the  glorious  prince  Vladimir 
Was  given  a  feast,  a  banquet 
For  mighty  princes,  for  boyars, 
For  powerful  Russian  warriors. 4 

1  Gilferding,  ii,  p.  38.  2  Rybnikov,  i,  p.  202. 

3  Andreev,  p.  123.  4  Rybnikov,  i,  p.  43. 

237 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Since  the  Russian  minstrel  is  not  restricted  to  a  very  exact  metre, 
he  is  able  to  vary  his  language  in  a  way  that  Homer  does  not  and 
indeed  cannot. 

The  metre  of  Jugoslav  heroic  poetry  is  much  stricter  than  that 
of  Russian.  It  is  based  on  accent  and  is  normally  a  trochaic 
pentameter  like 

God  of  mercy  !  what  a  mighty  marvel ! 

It  allows  licences  with  accent  but  no  more  than  are  allowed  in 
quite  regular  English  verse  equally  based  on  accent.  For  this 
reason  many  of  its  formulae  remain  fixed  and  are  not  liable  to 
variation,  especially  the  single  lines  which  occur  so  frequently  at 
the  beginning  of  a  poem.  None  the  less  this  metre  is  better 
adapted  to  Jugoslav  than  the  hexameter  is  to  Greek,  and  easier 
to  compose.  Indeed  the  Jugoslav  metre  has  shown  its  adaptability 
by  the  way  in  which  it  can  accommodate  almost  any  proper  name 
or  account  of  technical  events.  But  the  ease  with  which  the 
Jugoslav  metre  adapts  itself  to  new  themes  means  that  it  lacks  the 
suppleness  and  variety  of  the  Greek  hexameter,  and  in  conse- 
quence its  formulae  are  less  carefully  woven  into  the  text.  They 
stand  out  prominently,  often  at  the  beginning  of  a  line,  like  the 
theme  of  a  person  rising  early,  which  nearly  always  appears  in  the 
same  place : 

In  the  morning  rose  a  Turkish  maiden  .  .  . 

In  the  morning  Marko  rose  up  early  .  .  . 

In  the  morning  Oblak  made  all  ready  .  .  . 

or  the  theme  of  drinking  wine,  which  varies  only  between  singular 
and  plural  in  the  verb  : 

Drinking  wine  sat  thirty  chiefs  together  .  .  . 
Drinking  wine  sat  Musa  the  Albanian  .  .  . 
Drinking  wine  sat  the  King's  son  Marko  .  .  . 

The  Jugoslav  method  differs  from  Homer's  in  an  important  respect. 
Whereas  Homer  has  a  different  formula  for  every  place  in  the  line 
and  is  so  able  to  vary  a  given  theme  in  many  ways,  the  Jugoslavs 
have  a  standard  formula  and  allot  the  same  place  in  the  line  to  it, 
with  the  result  that  they  are  far  more  monotonous.  Similarly, 
when  they  use  complete  lines  or  blocks  of  lines,  their  introduction 
of  them  is  more  marked  than  in  Homer  because  they  normally 
start  with  the  beginning  of  one  line  and  end  with  the  end  of 
another.  The  Jugoslav  art  is  less  advanced  than  Homer 's,  and 
for  this  reason  its  formulae  draw  more  attention  to  themselves. 

238 


THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION:    LANGUAGE 

Another  difference  between  Greek  poetry  and  the  poetry  not 
only  of  the  Slavonic  peoples  but  of  others  can  be  seen  in  the 
management  of  a  difficulty  caused  by  the  use  of  noun- adjective 
combinations.  If  a  noun  has  an  adjective  attached  to  it,  there  must 
be  times  sooner  or  later  when  this  adjective  is  not  so  much  otiose 
as  absurd.  This  happens  often  enough  in  Russian  poems.  The 
hero,  Dyuk  Stepanovich,  comes  from  Galicia,  which  has  the 
epithet  "  accursed  "  because,  like  Poland  and  Lithuania,  it  belongs 
to  the  Roman  Church  and  is  viewed  with  disapproval  by  the 
Orthodox  Russians.  Ordinarily  this  does  not  matter,  but  there  is 
some  absurdity  when  Dyuk,  in  answer  to  Vladimir's  question  who 
he  is,  says : 

"  I  come  from  accursed  Galicia."  l 

So  too  Russia,  because  of  its  attachment  to  the  Orthodox  Church, 
is  always  "  Holy  Russia  ",  but  it  is  absurd  when  the  Turkish 
Sultan  plans  an  attack  on  it  and  says  : 

"  I  shall  go  into  Holy  Russia."  2 

There  are  similar  misfits  in  Jugoslav  poems,  as  when  the  standard 
epithet  for  hands,  "  white  ",  is  applied  to  Moors,  who  are  them- 
selves called  "  black  ".3  Something  of  the  same  kind  can  be  seen 
in  Bulgarian  when  Marko  deals  with  a  Moor  : 

And  he  cut  his  fair-haired  head  off.* 

Since  by  convention  all  heads  are  "  fair-haired  ",  the  adjective  is 
used  even  for  a  Moor.  So  too  a  dead  formula  may  account  for  a 
difficulty  at  the  end  of  the  Norse  Atlamdl : 

Then  did  Atli  die,      and  his  heirs*  grief  doubled.* 

Since  all  Atli's  heirs  are  dead,  the  last  phrase  is  meaningless  and 
has  been  introduced  because  it  is  often  used  for  deaths.  We  might 
think  that  Homer,  with  his  greater  number  of  noun- adjective 
combinations,  would  often  fall  into  this  trap.  Nor  is  he  entirely 
safe  from  it.  It  is,  for  instance,  a  little  disturbing  to  find  that 
Eriphyle's  husband  is  called  "  dear  "  when  she  plots  his  death,6 
or  that  the  dirty  linen  which  Nausicaa  washes  is  "  shining  ",7  as 
if  it  were  clean.  But  such  cases  are  not  in  fact  very  common. 
Homer  usually  seems  to  see  when  a  contradiction  is  involved  and 
surmounts  it  to  secure  an  ironical  contrast.  When  Achilles  sulks 
in  his  tent,  he  is  still  "  fleet-footed  ",  and  the  adjective  compares 

1  Rybnikov,  i,  p.  100.  2  Gilferding,  ii,  p.  174. 

3  Drerup,  p.  461.  4  Dozon,  p.  64. 

5  Atlamdl,  98,  2.  6  Od.  xi,  327.  7  Ibid,  vi,  26. 

239 


HEROIC  POETRY 

him  as  he  normally  is  with  what  he  is  now.1  When  the  waters  of 
the  Scamander  are  fouled  with  blood,  the  River-god  calls  them 
beautiful,2  which  is  of  course  their  usual  and  proper  condition. 
When  Homer  says  that  the  "  life-giving  "  earth  covers  Helen's 
brothers  in  death,3  he  marks  the  ironical  contrast  in  the  nature  of 
the  earth  which  both  feeds  and  buries  us.4  This  is  a  delicate  art 
which  Homer  usually  manages  with  skill.  Of  course  it  might  be 
argued  that  such  epithets  are  so  otiose  that  nobody  takes  much 
notice  of  them.  This  is  no  doubt  true  in  many  cases,  but  none  the 
less  it  is  a  finer  art  to  make  a  conscious  use  of  such  formulae  than 
to  treat  them  as  if  they  had  no  function. 

When  we  look  at  Homer's  use  of  language,  a  paradox  emerges. 
On  the  one  hand  his  use  of  formulae  is  more  extensive,  more 
homogeneous  and  more  governed  by  rules  than  any  other  poetry. 
On  the  other  hand  the  range  of  his  effects  is  greater,  and  his 
purely  poetical  achievement  is  far  richer  and  more  subtle  than  any 
other  heroic  poet's.  The  explanation  of  this  is  probably  that  he 
stands  in  the  middle  of  an  important  change  produced  by  the  intro- 
duction of  writing.  That  it  came  in  the  eighth  century  we  can 
hardly  doubt,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  its  special  character  was 
determined  by  a  desire  to  use  it  to  record  poetry.5  In  this  case 
we  can  understand  Homer's  ambiguous  position.  Behind  him 
lie  centuries  of  oral  performance,  largely  improvised,  with  all  its 
wealth  of  formulae  adapted  to  an  exacting  metre  ;  these  he  knows 
and  uses  fully.  But  if  he  also  knows  writing  and  is  able  to  commit 
his  poems  to  it,  he  is  enabled  to  give  a  far  greater  precision  and 
care  to  what  he  says  than  any  improvising  poet  ever  can.  Since  it 
is  almost  impossible  to  believe  that  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  were 
ever  improvised,  and  the  richness  of  their  poetry  suggests  some 
reliance  on  writing,  we  may  see  in  them  examples  of  what  happens 
when  writing  comes  to  help  the  oral  bard.  He  continues  to  com- 
pose in  the  same  manner  as  before,  but  with  a  far  greater  care  and 
effectiveness.  He  can  omit  and  correct  and  rearrange  and  take  his 
time  as  the  improvising  poet  cannot,  and  the  result  is  a  great 
enrichment  of  his  texture.  Indeed  the  dazzling  use  which  Homer 
makes  of  his  traditional  formulae  is  perhaps  an  indication  that  he 
has  passed  beyond  their  purely  functional  use  in  composition  to 

1  //.  i,  489.  2  Ibid,  xxi,  218.  3  Ibid,  iii,  243. 

4  There  are  other  places  in  which  a  traditional  epithet  contradicts  the 
sense  of  a  passage,  without  perhaps  our  noticing  it,  as  when  the  sky  is  called 
"  starry  ",  though  it  is  day,  at  //.  xv,  371,  Od.  ix,  527,  xii,  380,  or  Ajax  calls 
Hector  "  great-hearted  "  at  //.  xiv,  440,  or  Zeus  refers  to  the  villainous  Aegisthus 
as  "  blameless  "  at  Od.  i,  29.  For  Aristarchus'  treatment  of  this  point  cf. 
Parry,  L'Epithete  traditionnelle,  p.  148  ff. 

*  I  owe  this  suggestion  to  H.  T.  Wade-Gery. 

240 


THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION:    LANGUAGE 

something  that  is  almost  purely  poetical.  Perhaps  he  learned  his 
craft  in  the  old  tradition,  but  in  his  lifetime  the  alphabet  appeared, 
and  he  had  the  insight  to  see  what  great  advantages  it  brought 
in  turning  the  old  technique  to  a  nobler  and  richer  purpose. 

If  Homer  represents  the  transition  from  improvised,  oral 
poetry  to  a  poetry  which  relies  to  some  extent  on  writing,  other 
heroic  poems  show  what  happens  when  writing  is  well  established 
and  commonly  used.  Gilgamish  survives  in  written  texts  of  four 
different  languages,  and  we  might  expect  it  to  be  a  purely  literary 
composition  with  no  signs  of  oral  usage  and  formulae.  Yet  it  has 
its  fair  share  of  them.  For  noun-adjective  combinations  it  offers 
"  handsome  couch  ",  "  generous  mantle  ",  "  Erech  the  high- 
walled  ",  or  "  the  broad-marketed  ",  "  crest  like  an  aurochs  ", 
"  the  lady  Ishtar  ",  "  the  Sun-god  in  heaven  ",  "  Humbaba  whose 
roar  is  a  whirlwind  ",  "  the  cedar- forest,  terror  to  mortals  ", 
"  Uta-Napishtim  the  distant",  and  "  Ninsun,  the  glorious  queen". 
Its  repeated  lines  are  not  very  common  but  include  : 

Gilgamish  opened  his  mouth  and  spake, 
Roaming  the  desert  like  a  hunter, 

He  takes  his  axe  in  his  hand, 

He  draws  his  dagger  from  his  belt, 

Comrade  and  henchman  who  chased 

The  ass  of  the  mountains,  the  pard  of  the  desert. 

Though  the  Assyrian  poet  of  Gilgamish  certainly  owes  much  to 
books,  and  may  well  have  composed  his  poem  to  be  read  by  the 
learned  few,  his  style  remains  largely  that  of  oral  composition. 
He  has,  it  is  true,  a  greater  degree  of  free  composition  and  fewer 
formulaic  passages  than  we  find  in  Homer,  but  that  no  doubt  is 
because  he  is  more  accustomed  to  writing  and  relies  more  upon  it. 
None  the  less  he  maintains  the  manners  of  oral  composition  in 
some  important  respects.  This  may  be  due  in  the  first  place  to 
his  sense  that  he  belongs  to  a  tradition  and  must  write  in  a  tradi- 
tional way.  But  it  must  also  be  partly  due  to  the  needs  of  recita- 
tion. His  poem  would  normally  be  recited  and  would  thus  need 
the  devices  which  are  proper  to  recitation  and  indeed  almost 
indispensable  to  it.  , 

The  example  of  Gilgamish  suggests  that/the  existence  of  writing 
need  not  necessarily  interfere  very  much  with  the  formulaic 
character  of  heroic  poetry,  though  it  naturally  gives  more  oppor- 
tunity for  free  composition.  Such  conditions  may  perhaps 
explain  the  character  of  the  language  of  Beowulf  and  other 

241 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Anglo-Saxon  poems  and  the  Elder  Edda.  We  may  be  fairly  sure 
that  the  author  of  Beowulf  was  able  to^ J[?acL>  an<i  since  the  frag- 
ments of  Finnsburh  and  Waldhere  cannot  be  far  from  him  in  date, 
it  is  at  least  possible  that  their  authors  were  in  the  same  case. 
With  the  Elder  Edda  the  possibility  is  hardly  less.  That  some  of 
the  poems  are  ultimately  derived  from  an  illiterate  society  is 
beyond  doubt,  but  in  their  present  form,  broken  and  corrupt 
though  they  are,  they  must  have  been  written  down,  or  for  that 
matter  remembered,  if  not  actually  composed,  at  a  time  when 
reading  and  writing  were  not  uncommon.  But  both  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  and  the  Norse  poems  retain  formulae  in  the  same  way  as 
Gilgamishy  and  no  doubt  for  the  same  reason.  They  preserve  a 
technique  which  goes  back  to  the  Germanic  mainland  and  is  at 
least  as  old  as  the  fourth  century  A.D.  and  probably  much  older, 
and  such  a  tradition  is  not  lightly  abandoned,  even  when  its 
original  usefulness  for  improvisation  is  no  longer  urgent.  Equally 
the  Norse  and  Anglo-Saxon  audiences,  knowing  that  these  poems 
preserved  memories  of  a  distant  past,  might  well  expect  them  to 
be  composed  in  a  traditional  manner  in  which  formulae  play  their 
ancient,  almost  hieratic  part.  Indeed  the  respect  for  formulae 
can  be  seen  in  the  way  in  which  Beowulf  uses  them  for  Christian 
matte^sjwhichjie^outside ;  the  old  heathen,  Germanic_  tradition  but 
are  assimilated  to  the  ancient  style.  They  belong  to  the  art  and 
are  expected  from  any  practitioner  of  itj 

Whatever  the  relations  of  Anglo-Saxon  heroic  poetry  may  have 
been  to  an  earlier  Germanic  tradition,  itlsTcIear  that  to  some  extent 
it  employs  formulae.  These  are  obvious  in  Beowulf  and  Finnsburh 
and  survive  somewhat  diluted  in  Maldon.  They  fall,  as  usual, 
into  two  classes,  noun-adjective  combinations  and  repeated 
phrases,  though  the  unit  in  the  latter  is  less  usually  the  whole 
line  than  the  half-line.  The  noun-adjective  combinations  are 
numerous.  They  include  such  familiar  phrases  as  "  grey  sea  ", 
"  hollow  ship  ",  "  windy  cliffs  ",  "  lofty  halls  ".  The  great  man 
is  "  lord  of  men  "  or  "  lord  of  knights  "  ;  the  king  is  "  keeper  of 
troops  " ;  the  hero  is  "  rampart  of  a  nation  ".  More  peculiar  and 
more  characteristic  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  temper  are  the  "kennings", 
artificial  synonyms,  which  present  things  by  referring  only  to  some 
special  aspect  of  them.  By  this  means  the  sea  is  "  the  whale's 
road  "  or  "  the  gannets'  bath  ",  a  soldier  is  a  "  helmet-bearer  ", 
the  sun  "  the  world's  great  candle  ",  to  make  a  speech  "  to  unlock 
a  word-hoard  ",  fire  "  the  branches'  foe  ",  and  to  die  "  to  leave 
earth's  joys  ".  These  are  quite  as  integral  a  part  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  style  as  the  more  ordinary  noun-adjective  combinations. 

242 


THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION:    LANGUAGE 

The  minstrel  would  learn  them  and  find  them  useful  in  helping 
him  to  keep  up  the  special  tone  at  which  this  kind  of  poetry  aimed. 
Such  phrases  have  no  parallel  in  Homer  or  Slavonic  poetry,  but 
they  are  not  alien  to  Asiatic  taste,  and  they  certainly  belong  to  a 
tradition  of  oral  improvised  poetry.  (  Like  the  noun- adjective 
combinations,  they  help  the  poet  in  his  task  by  providing  him  with 
ready-made  aids.  ) 

f  Longer  phrases  which  help  the  mechanism  of  the  action  are 
equally  present  in  Beowulf,  and  several  hundred  examples  of  them 
have  been  noted.  Some  of  these  are  complete  lines  like 

The  gift  firm-set      which  God  had  sent  him  (1271,  2182) 
And  the  fighters  were  fallen,      the  fierce  Shieldings  (252,  3005) 
Ere  he  might  go      to  the  ground  beneath  (1496,  2770). 

But  these  are  exceptional.  The  more  truly  formulaic  element  in 
Beowulf  is  the  half-line  like 

Hoard -warden  of  heroes  (1047,  1852) 
Jewel  of  athelings  (130,  2342) 
Picked  band  of  thegns  (400,  1627) 
Young  spear- warrior  (2674,  2811) 
Good  and  gallant  (602,  2349) 
Massacre  fierce  (2250,  2537) 

Hard,  hand-linked  (322,  551). 
(of  mail-coats) 

Since  many  of  these  half-lines  are  concerned  with  the  details  of 
fighting,  they  are  likely  to  come  from  an  old  tradition.  In  Beowulf 
they  play  a  part  half-way  between  noun-adjective  combinations 
and  repeated  lines.  Since  they  are  not  in  themselves  complete, 
they  provide  only  part  of  a  sentence ;  the  rest  must  be  provided 
by  the  poet  to  suit  his  needs.  But  they  perform  a  useful  function 
in  dealing  with  many  ordinary  actions.  The  poet  may,  if  he  likes, 
eschew  them,  but  he  can  equally  use  them  and  relate  them  to  his 
poem  by  the  words  with  which  he  completes  them  into  whole  lines. 
These  half-lines  are  part  of  a  wider  method  used  by  Anglo- 
Saxon  poets  for  composition.  The  original  method  of  composi- 
tion seems  to  have  been  through  a  verse  matrix,  which  is  a  half-line 
with  double  alliteration.1  What  counts  is  precisely  the  existence 
of  certain  phrases  which  can  be  altered  to  suit  different  needs  and 
then,  without  much  trouble,  completed  with  a  second  half-line. 
The  different  ways  in  which  this  can  be  done  can  be  seen  from 

1  E.  D.  Laborde,  Byrhtnoth  and  Maldon,  p.  54  ;  M.L.R.  xix,  p.  410  ff. 

243 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Maldon,  where  the  poet  knows  the  old  artifices  and  uses  them 
quietly  and  efficiently.  These  matrices  usually  consist  of  three 
words.  This  provides  a  unit  which  the  bard  can  alter  to  suit  his 
needs,  while  keeping  the  essential  element  of  alliteration.  Such  a 
matrix  may  be  seen  in  Maldon  in 

gar  to  gu>e  (13) 
(spear  to  fight). 

This  can  be  transformed  either  at  the  end  into 

gar  and  god  swurd  (237) 
(spear  and  good  sword) 

or  at  the  beginning  into 

guman  t5  gu]^e  (94) 
(warriors  to  fight). 

This  device  enables  proper  names  to  be  introduced  without  too 
much  difficulty,  as  in 

Godric  fram  gttye  (187) 
(Godric  from  fight) 
or 

Godric  to  guj?e  (321) 
(Godric  to  fight). 

On  this  basis  the  poet  works.  Vjt  seems  to  be  an  inheritance  from 
the  old  Germanic  poetry,  and  may  be  detected  not  only  in  Beowulf 
but  in  the  Elder  Edda.  Of  course  it  is  different  from  the  static 
formulae  of  many  poetries,  but  it  rises  from  like  causes.  The 
bard  who  has  this  instrument  at  his  command  is  able  to  improvise, 
at  least  on  familiar  subjects,  without  much  difficulty.  The  peculiar 
nature  of  the  device  is  due  to  the  alliterative  character  of  Germanic 
poetry,  which  naturally  has  to  be  treated  differently  from  a  poetry 
based  on  quantity,  like  Greek,  or  on  the  number  of  syllables  and 
accents,  like  Jugoslav.  ) 

V<A  comparison  of  Beowulf  or  Maldon  with  modern  improvised 
poems  or  with  Homer  shows  some  points  of  difference  in  tech- 
nique.^Jn  the  first  place,  Beowulf  is  unusual  in  using  a  great  many 
synonyms.  There  are,  for  instance,  some  thirty  for  "  hall  "  or 
"  house  ",  twenty-six  for  "  king  ",  nine  for  "  ship  ",  seventeen 
for  "  sword  ",  twenty-three  for  "  retainers  ".J  Of  course  Homer 
also  uses  synonyms,  but  not  on  this  scale.  (jSTor  is  Beowulf  com- 
pelled by  necessities  of  metre  to  use  such  a  variety.  Many  of  these 
synonyms  begin  with  the  same  letter  and,  so  far  as  the  metre  is 
concerned,  one  beginning  with  each  different  letter  would  be 
enough.  Like  the  "  kennings  ",  they  are  a  feature  of  the  elevated 

244 


THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION:    LANGUAGE 

style,  invented  not  so  much  to  help  the  poet  in  the  task  of  improvisa- 
tion as  to  enable  him  to  maintain  the  required  tone.  Of  course 
some  of  them  would  help  in  improvisation,  and  no  doubt  all  would 
be  more  or  less  useful.  But  that  is  not  their  first  purpose.  The 
Anglo-Saxon  art  of  heroic  poetry  aims  more  consciously  at  a 
special  TuncToF effect  than  the  Russian  or  the  Jugoslav,  no  doubt 
because  it  is  a  court-poetry,  whereas  they,  at  least  in  their  modern 
form,  belong^ to  "peasants  and  humble  people  who  do  not  ask  for 
too  much  complication.^ 

\Jhi  the  second  place,  Beowulf  treats  certain  standard  themes 
neither  with  the  free,  if  monotonous,  treatment  of  the  Russian 
byliny  nor  with  Homer's  strict  adherence  to  formulae.  This  may 
be  examined  for  such  common  themes  as  the  feast  and  going  to 
bed.  There  are  three  feasts  in  Beowulf,  the  first  after  Beowulf's 
arrival  at  Hrothgar's  court,1  the  second  after  the  rout  of  Grendel,2 
and  the  third  after  the  slaying  of  the  Dam.3  Each  is  treated  quite 
differently  with  no  trace  of  stock  phrases.  So  too  with  going  to  bed. 
After  each  of  these  feasts  the  poet  tells  how  Hrothgar  goes  to  bed,4 
and  in  each  case  treats  it  differently.  This  is  not  in  the  least  like 
Homer's  standard  and  formulaic  handling  of  such  occasions. 
Since  the  actions  described  are  purely  mechanical,  we  might 
expect  them  to  be  treated  mechanically,  but  they  are  not.  The 
poet  will  expend  eight  lines  on  a  topic  which  hardly  affects  the 
narrative,  and  give  to  it  his  personal  attention,  selecting  on  each 
occasion  some  different  element  in  the  very  familiar  action.]  This 
method  differs  both  from  Homer  and  from  most  mocfern  oral 
poetry,  in  both  of  which  such  matters  are  dismissed  summarily 
as  necessary  to  the  reality  of  the  story  but  no  more.  ^The  Anglo- 
Saxon  style  has  its  formulae,  but  it  does  not  use  them  as  Homer 
does.  And  this  is  probably  due  to  the  different  metre.  The  unit 
is  tKe  half-line,  and  most  formulae  are  formed  as  half-lines ; 
since  there  is  no  great  difficulty  in  completing  one  half-line  with 
another  in  alliteration,  the  Anglo-Saxon  poets  seem  to  have  felt 
that  they  could  dispense  with  longer^ formulaic  phrases  and  use 
even  single  formulaic  lines  sparingly.  [ 

In  general,  despite  these  differences  of  technique,  which  are 
due  to  differences  of  metre  and  ultimately  of  language,  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  poets  resemble  the  Russians  and  the  Jugoslavs  and  even  the 
Asiatic  peoples  in  combining  formulae  with  free  composition. 
The  differences  are  not  of  kind  but  of  degree,  and  this  is  probably 
due  to  the  appearance  of  writing  in  England  before  Beozvulf  was 

1   Beowulf,  491-8.  2  Ibid.  1010-17. 

3  Ibid.  1785-9.  4  Ibid.  662-6,  1235-8,  1789-92. 

245 


HEROIC  POETRY 

composed.  Like  the  Homeric  poems  and  Gilgamish,  its  texture 
suggests  that  the  poet  did  not  improvise  but  was  able  to  work 
slowly  and  carefully,  and  this  implies  some  help  from  writing.  In 
this  there  is  no  difficulty.  Writing  was  common  enough  in  Eng- 
land about  700  when  the  poem  seems  to  have  been  written.  The 
poet,  with  his  theological  interests,  may  well  have  been  in  contact 
with  clerical  circles  to  whom  Fooks  were  familiar.  The  poem 
must  have  been  written  down  long  before  it  was  copied  in  its 
present  manuscript  about  1000,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  think  that 
it  was  not  written  down  at  the  time  of  composition.  No  doubt  the 
old  Germanic  poetry  about  Arminius  or  even  the  first  poems  on 
Attila  were  improvised,  and  to  them  and  their  kind  the  poet  of 
Beowulf  owes  the  main  elements  of  his  style.  But  he  has  brought 
it  up  to  date  and  used  many  opportunities  to  escape  from  a  purely 
formulaic  language.  We  can  hardly  doubt  that  he  composed  for 
recitation,  and  for  this  reason  he  keeps  many  elements  of  the  old 
oral  style.  That  such  was  expected  of  him  is  clear  from  his 
Christian  jind  theological  passages,  which  cannot  owe  anything  to 
the  old  Germanic  poetry,  but  have  none  the  less  been  assimilated 
to  its  manner.^J 

The  Elder  Edda  shows  similar,  if  fewer,  traces  of  an  improvising 
past.  For  noun-adjective  combinations  we  can  quote,  "  lofty  " 
buildings,  "  high-legged  "  stags,  horses  "  trained  to  coursing  ", 
and  kings  "  lords  of  land  ".  In  the  Lay  of  Volund  there  are  re- 
peated lines  like 

Maids  of  the  south,      spinners  of  flax, 
Volund  home      from  his  hunting  came,1 

In  the  Lays  of  Guthrun  I  and  II  a  formulaic  phrase  is  used  for 
Sigurth  : 

As  the  spear-leek  grows      above  the  grass. 

In  Guthrunarhvdt  there  is  an  even  more  primitive  kind  of  formula  : 
Then  Hamther  spake,      the  high  of  heart. 

We  cannot  doubt  that  the  Norse  poems  of  the  Elder  Edda  are 
derived  from  a  tradition  which  once  used  formulae.  Their 
diminution  may  have  been  dictated  by  a  desire  to  make  the  poems 
as  concentrated  and  concise  as  possible,  to  remove  any  extraneous 
or  unnecessary  detail.  Just  as  the  poets  omit  much  of  the  machinery 
of  narrative,  so  too  they  are  sparing  in  their  use  of  formulae.  Since 
every  word  is  expected  to  do  its  full  work,  the  standing  epithets  and 
fixed  phrases  have  often  been  omitted  or  replaced  by  others  which 

1  This  is  perhaps  a  special  case  ;   cf.  inf.  p.  261. 
246 


THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION:   LANGUAGE 

go  more  directly  to  the  point.  So  the  usual  apparatus  of  intro- 
ducing speeches  is  largely  abandoned,  and  the  characters  often 
begin  without  the  poet  saying  who  speaks.  Such  changes  were 
easy,  partly  because  the  poems  are  usually  short  and  would  not  be 
difficult  for  a  poet  to  compose  in  his  head  and  remember  for  recita- 
tion, partly  because  the  subjects  are  so  familiar  that  any  poet  would 
know  that  he  need  not  make  himself  perfectly  clear  on  every  point. 
X^The  linguistic  technique  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  Norse  poems 
is  a  natural  result  of  oral  composition.  They  have  sufficient  traces 
of  formulae  to  betray  both  their  origins  and  their  own  practice. 
The  same  can  hardly  be  said  of  the  Cid  and  Roland,  which  stand 
outside  the  main  scheme  and  raise  special  problems.  Both  were, 
so  far  as  we  can  see,  composed  in  writing.  It  is  certain  that  their 
authors  could  read,  and,  though  the  poems  would  no  doubt  be 
recited,  there  is  here  no  question  of  purely  oral  composition.  The 
origins  of  the  two  poems  are  probably  different.  If  Roland  is 
something  of  a  sport,  the  Cid  certainly  shares  many  characteristics 
with  other  heroic  poetry.  Even  if  these  are  partly  due  to  a  literary 
origin,  some  may  be  traced  back  to  a  past  when  oral  composition 
was  the  rule. 

The  Cid  reveals  traces  both  of  noun-adjective  combinations 
and  of  repeated  lines,  though  neither  conforms  very  closely  to 
other  models.  Some  of  the  characters,  it  is  true,  have  their 
epithets,  like  "  Martin  Antolinez,  the  loyal  citizen ",  "  God, 
spiritual  father  of  us  all  ",  "  Galindo  Garcia,  the  valiant  lance  ", 
"  Minaya,  the  illustrious  knight  ",  but  these  epithets  are  by  no 
means  constant,  and  they  usually  perform  some  slight  function  in 
their  context  instead  of  being  merely  decorative  or  otiose  as  are 
most  epithets  in  improvised  heroic  poetry.  Thus  Martin  Antolinez 
is  called  "  loyal  citizen  "  because  his  prowess  is  needed  at  that 
moment.  Though  the  persons  of  the  Cid  are  clear  enough  in  their 
simple  outlines,  that  is  not  because  they  are  distinguished  by 
characterising  epithets  but  because  they  show  themselves  in  speech 
and  action.  To  this  general  paucity  of  noun-adjective  combina- 
tions there  is  one  great  exception  —  the  Cid  himself.  He  is 
called  variously  "  the  Cid  Ruy  Diaz  ",  "  the  Campeador  ",  "  the 
good  Cid  Campeador ",  "  the  fortunate  Cid  ",  "  Cid  of  the 
beautiful  beard  ",  "  the  Cid  of  Vivar  ",  "  illustrious  Campeador  ". 
This  variety  is  all  the  more  remarkable  because  of  the  comparative 
absence  of  titles  for  other  characters.  It  is  surely  possible  that  in 
treating  his  hero  like  this  the  poet  follows  a  tradition  which  he 
otherwise  neglects.  The  Cid  is  honoured  in  this  way  because  he 
is  a  fit  companion  for  the  heroes  of  old  and  worthy  to  be  men- 

247  R 


HEROIC  POETRY 

tioned  in  an  archaic  manner.  Such  titles  are  of  course  perfectly 
to  the  point,  but  they  suggest  that  the  poet  has  either  invented 
them  or  adapted  them  from  an  older  tradition  in  order  to  give  a 
heroic  status  to  his  chief  character. 

More  striking  than  these  titles  is  the  way  in  which  the  poet 
of  the  Cid  devotes  certain  recurring  lines  to  his  hero.  He  com- 
monly says  of  him  that  he  "  girt  on  his  sword  in  a  good  hour  ". 
The  formula  is  not  quite  constant  but  shows  minor  variations,  like 

Ya  Canpeador,  en  buena  sinxiestes  espada, 

(O  Campeador,  in  a  good  hour  thou  didst  gird  on  thy  sword) 

Mio  £id  Roy  Diaz,  el  que  en  buena  cinxo  espada, 

(My  Cid,  Ruy  Diaz,  who  in  a  good  hour  girt  on  his  sword) 

Fablo  mio  Qid,  el  que  en  buen  ora  9inxo  espada, 

(So  spoke  the  Cid,  who  in  a  good  hour  girt  on  his  sword) 

Merced,  Canpeador,  en  buen  ora  cinxiestes  espada, 

(Thank  you,  Campeador,  in  a  good  hour  thou  didst  gird  on  thy  sword.) 

This  is  plainly  formulaic.  The  notion  that  the  Cid  "  girt  on  his 
sword  in  a  good  hour  "  has  little  direct  connection  with  the 
contexts  in  which  it  occurs.  It  is  decorative,  but  not  especially  so, 
and  it  has  all  the  marks  of  being  derived  from  a  formulaic  style. 
It  almost  takes  the  place  of  a  noun-adjective  combination  and  does 
very  much  the  same  kind  of  task.  Instead  of  qualifying  the  Cid 
with  an  adjective,  the  poet  makes  a  laudatory  statement  about  him. 
Nor  is  this  the  only  case  of  such  a  formula.  The  poet  is  hardly  less 
fond  of  another,  which  also  takes  slightly  different  forms  : 

Ya  Canpeador,  en  buen  ora  fostes  na^ido, 

(O  Campeador,  thou  wast  born  in  a  good  hour) 

Dixo  el  Qid,  el  que  en  buen  ora  nasco, 

(Then  spoke  the  Cid  who  was  born  in  a  good  hour) 

Fabl6  mio  £id,  Roy  Diaz,  el  que  en  buen  ora  fue  nado. 
(Then  spake  the  Cid,  Ruy  Diaz,  who  was  born  in  a  good  hour.) 

These  formulaic  expressions  suggest  two  considerations.  First, 
the  variation  which  exists  inside  each  recalls  the  Russian  habit  of 
varying  a  formula,  as  opposed  to  the  strict  Homeric  adherence  to 
it ;  and  this  is  largely  due  to  considerations  of  metre.  The 
Spanish  line,  which  greatly  varies  the  number  of  its  syllables  and 
has  no  very  marked  rhythm,  resembles  the  Russian  and  not  the 
Greek  line  in  this  respect.  The  Spanish  formula  is  not  forced  into 
an  absolutely  fixed  shape,  and  in  fact  has  not  got  one.  Yet  it  is 
plainly  a  formula,  and  no  doubt  its  origins  are  to  be  found  in  the 
needs  of  improvisation  —  there  is  no  need  to  think  that  it  was  first 

248 


THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION:    LANGUAGE 

used  of  the  Cid  —  but  it  has  not  the  finality  of  formulae  fashioned 
for  strict  metres  like  those  of  the  Greeks  or  even  the  Jugoslavs. 
Secondly,  we  can  see  why  the  poet  sometimes  uses  one  of  these 
kinds  of  formulae  and  sometimes  the  other.  His  lines  are  bound 
together  by  assonance  in  the  final  syllable.  They  are  not  formed 
in  regular  strophes,  and  the  number  of  lines  in  a  section  varies 
greatly.  But  in  each  section  the  final  assonance  must  be  pre- 
served. Now  the  formula  of  girding  on  the  sword  belongs  to  lines 
whose  assonance  is  a,  while  that  of  being  born  in  a  good  hour 
belongs  to  lines  whose  assonance  is  o.  By  such  aids  to  metre 
composition  is  made  easier  for  the  poet. 

The  Cid  stands  apart  in  its  use  of  formulae.  On  the  one  hand 
it  uses  them,  even  if  sparingly  and  in  a  special  way  ;  on  the  other 
hand  its  movement  is  generally  so  akin  to  that  of  prose  narrative 
that  the  main  impression  made  is  not  at  all  formulaic.  This  would 
seem  to  indicate  that  originally  there  was  an  oral  poetry  in  Spain 
which  used  formulae  to  some  extent,  but  that  the  poet  of  the  Cid 
wrote  his  poem  when  this  old  style  had  been  largely  superseded. 
So  far  his  manner  might  suggest  that  he  uses  formulae  out  of 
respect  for  the  past.  But  it  may  be  possible,  though  it  cannot  be 
proved,  that  oral  poetry  in  Spain  never  developed  formulae  on 
any  great  scale.  To  judge  by  the  extant  remains  of  Spanish  heroic 
poetry,  not  merely  in  the  Cid  but  in  fragments  of  other  poems 
restored  from  the  chronicles,  this  style  was  always  factual  and  even 
prosaic.  The  elastic  nature  of  the  heroic  line,  with  its  lack  of 
fixed  accent  and  its  ability  to  vary  greatly  its  number  of  syllables, 
suggests  that  oral  composition  can  never  have  presented  such 
difficulties  as  it  does  for  the  Greek  hexameter  or  even  the  old 
Germanic  metres.  In  that  case  the  bard  may  not  have  needed 
formulae  so  much  as  in  these  other  cases,  and  that  would  explain 
why  there  are  so  few  of  them.  Of  course  the  Cid  was  composed  in 
an  age  when  writing  was  quite  common  and  the  poet  was  probably 
an  educated  man.  So  it  is  conceivable  that  the  comparative 
absence  of  formulae  in  his  work  is  due  to  his  reliance  on  writing. 
None  the  less  his  poem  was  intended  for  recitation,  as  he  himself 
says  more  than  once,  and  we  would  expect  him  to  show  more  traces 
of  formulae  than  he  does,  simply  because  they  are  useful  in  recita- 
tion. Though  there  can  be  no  certainty  in  the  matter,  on  the  whole 
it  looks  as  if  in  Spain  heroic  poetry  never  used  formulae  so  freely 
as  elsewhere,  and  that  the  Cid  has  almost  passed  beyond  them. 

Roland  also  presents  a  peculiar  case.  As  we  shall  see  later,  it 
looks  as  if  French  heroic  poetry  came  into  existence  about  the 
year  1000,  and  was  influenced  not  by  indigenous  French  lays  but 

249 


HEROIC  POETRY 

by  Latin  poems  of  the  type  of  Waltharius.  Since  these  poems  are 
sometimes  based  on  German  vernacular  originals,  of  the  type  of 
Waldhere,  they  contain  echoes  of  formulae  even  in  their  pseudo- 
Virgilian  dress.  Roland,  which  might  be  expected  to  have  no 
formulae  at  all,  has  in  fact  a  fair  share  of  them.  It  is  true  that  so 
far  as  proper  names  are  concerned,  noun-adjective  combinations 
hardly  exist.  The  nearest  is  "  sweet  France  ",  but  otherwise  both 
places  and  people  go  for  the  most  part  unadorned.  With  ordinary 
things  the  case  is  different.  Roland  has  its  simple  combinations 
like  "  green  olive-branches  ",  "  green  grass  ",  "  spurs  of  gold  ", 
"  Alexandrian  silk  ",  "  golden  hilt  ",  "  good  sword  ",  "  good 
spear  ",  "  good  hauberk  ".  In  their  unpretentious  air  these 
combinations  look  traditional  and  conventional,  and  though  it  is 
hard  to  believe  that  they  are  derived  from  Latin  learning,  it  is 
possible  that  they  come  from  an  old  vernacular  usage  through 
Latin  adaptations.  At  the  same  time  it  should  be  noticed  that  the 
poet  often  advances  beyond  them  to  a  greater  elaboration,  as  when 
he  dwells  with  admiring  care  on  the  points  of  a  piece  of  armour 
instead  of  dismissing  it  briefly  with  a  single  adjective.  So  he 
speaks  of 

Gird  on  their  swords  of  tried  steel  Viennese, 

Fine  shields  they  have,  and  spears  Valentinese.     (997-8) 

Their  helmets  gleam,  with  gold  are  jewelled, 

Also  their  shields,  their  hauberks  orfreyed.     (1031-2) 

His  horse  he  pricks  with  his  fine  spurs  of  gold.     (1738) 

Of  course  in  such  matters  the  poet  speaks  of  what  he  knows  and 
his  audience  expects  to  hear.  He  therefore  adds  a  touch  of  pro- 
fessional knowledge  and  gives  an  individual  quality  to  his  details. 
Though  most  of  Roland  is  occupied  with  fighting  and  treats 
of  it  with  knowledge  and  precision,  the  poet  on  the  whole  avoids 
repeating  himself  verbally  on  such  matters  as  wounds  and  deaths. 
Here  he  differs  from  Homer.  Homer  tends  to  have  a  set  formula 
for  each  kind  of  wound,  but  Roland  describes  fewer  kinds  without 
any  set  form.  For  instance,  in  the  first  great  fight  seven  successive 
sections  speak  of  different  single  combats,  and  in  each  the  substance 
is  much  the  same.  A  blow  breaks  the  opponent's  shield  and 
pierces  his  hauberk,  so  that  he  is  killed.  But  this  is  expressed  in  a 
number  of  ways : 

So  his  good  shield  is  nothing  worth  at  all, 

Shatters  the  boss,  was  fashioned  of  crystal, 

One  half  of  it  downward  to  earth  flies  off ; 

Right  to  the  flesh  has  through  his  hauberk  torn.     (1262-5) 

250 


THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION:    LANGUAGE 

The  shield  he  breaks,  the  hauberk  unmetals, 

And  his  good  spear  drives  into  his  vitals.     (1270-71) 

The  shield  he  breaks,  with  golden  flowers  tooled, 
That  good  hauberk  for  him  is  nothing  proof.     (1276-7) 

The  shield  he  breaks,  its  golden  boss  above, 

The  hauberk  too,  its  doubled  mail  undoes.     (1283-4) 

The  shield  he  breaks  and  shatters  on  his  neck, 

The  hauberk  too,  he  has  its  chinguard  rent.     (1292-3) 

Upon  the  shield,  before  its  leathern  band, 

Slices  it  through,  the  white  with  the  scarlat, 

The  hauberk  too,  has  torn  its  folds  apart.     (1298-1300) 

The  shield  he  breaks,  the  hauberk  tears  and  splits.     (1305) 

To  modern  taste  these  variations  on  a  single  theme  may  not  be  very 
interesting,  but  to  their  original  audience  they  had  no  doubt  the 
appeal  which  details  of  battle  have  for  soldiers.  The  poet's  sense 
of  battle  may  not  be  very  varied,  but  it  is  at  least  vigorous  and 
intense. 

This  series  of  passages  illustrates  an  important  element  in  the 
technique  of  Roland.  In  five  out  of  the  seven  the  poet  describes 
the  breaking  of  the  shield  in  the  same  words,  "  1'escut  li  fraint  ". 
This  is  for  all  practical  purposes  a  formula,  which  is  used  as  a 
basis  for  variation,  fin  some  ways  it  resembles  the  formulaic 
half-lines  which  are  common  in  Beowulf  A  In  Roland  the  short 
phrases  usually  come  at  the  beginning  'of  a  line  and  are  then 
completed  with  varying  sequences  to  suit  the  required  assonance. 
For  instance,  the  setting  of  the  fight  at  Roncesvalles  is  conveyed 
by  the  formula  "  halt  sunt  li  pui  "  —  "  high  are  the  peaks  "  — 
but  each  time  that  it  occurs  it  is  completed  differently.  It  comes 
first  when  Charlemagne's  main  army  goes  through  the  pass  : 

Halt  sunt  li  pui  e  li  val  tenebrus.     (814) 
(High  are  the  peaks,  the  valleys  shadowful.) 

When  Roland  at  last  decides  to  blow  his  horn,  the  formula  conveys 
through  what  country  the  blast  rings  : 

Halt  sunt  li  pui  e  la  voiz  est  mult  lunge.     (1755) 
(High  are  the  peaks,  afar  it  rings  and  loud.) 

It  makes  a  third  appearance  when  Charlemagne's  forces  begin  to 
come  back  to  Roncesvalles  : 

Halt  sunt  li  pui  e  tenebrus  e  grant.     (1830) 
(High  are  the  peaks  and  shadowful  and  grand.) 

251 


HEROIC  POETRY 
And  its  last  appearance  is  when  Roland  swoons  before  death : 

Halt  sunt  li  pui  e  mult  halt  sunt  li  arbres.     (2271) 
(High  are  the  peaks,  the  trees  are  very  high.) 

On  each  occasion  the  formula  serves  a  somewhat  different  purpose 
by  having  a  different  conclusion.  But  the  reappearances  serve  to 
emphasise  the  setting  of  the  battle  and  to  remind  us  of  the  condi- 
tions in  which  it  is  fought.  The  poet  uses  it  consciously  with  a 
fine  sense  of  its  worth,  but  it  is  none  the  less  a  formula.1 

Roland  poses  a  special  question  about  the  use  of  formulae.  It 
is  no  longer  possible  to  believe  that  its  technique  is  derived  from  a 
long  tradition  of  indigenous  lays,  and  even  if  it  owes  something  to 
earlier  poems  written  from  1000  onwards,  its  background  and 
antecedents  are  quite  different  from  those  of  traditional  oral 
poems.  We  might  indeed  expect  Roland  to  have  few  or  no 
formulae,  and  yet  it  has  a  certain  number  of  them,  which  resemble 
to  some  extent  the  half-lines  of  Anglo-Saxon  poetry.  This  cannot 
be  an  accident,  and,  if  we  exclude  the  possibility  of  any  real  debt  to 
a  traditional  art,  the  most  natural  explanation  is  that  French 
heroic  poetry,  which  was  undoubtedly  recited  and  may  even  have 
been  to  some  degree  improvised,  was  forced  by  the  conditions  of 
its  performance  to  create  a  style  in  which  formulae  came  to  play  a 
part  because  of  the  minstrels'  and  the  audience's  needs.  They  were 
just  as  necessary  to  him  as  to  any  bard  who  has  to  perform  in 
public  and  to  keep  the  attention  of  his  hearers  without  too  great  a 
strain  on  them.  When  Taillefer  performed  at  Hastings,  we  need 
not  necessarily  assume  that  he  knew  his  poem  by  heart ;  it  is  at 
least  equally  likely  that  he  knew  the  outlines  of  the  story  and  the 
means  to  make  a  poem  of  it,  but  the  actual  presentation  may  have 
been  his  own,  and  for  it  he  would  need  some  of  the  aids  which  oral 
recitation  seems  to  find  indispensable. 

(^Jn  general,  we  may  say  that  the  language  of  heroic  poetry  falls 
into  two  classes.  In  one  it  is  derived  directly  from  the  needs  of 
improvisation  and  helps  the  poet  in  this  arduous  task.  This  is  the 
earlier  form  and  accounts  for  the  existence  of  formulae  on  a  large 
scale  in  most  heroic  poems.  If  a  bard  is  not  very  original,  he  may, 
like  some  Russian  bards,  confine  himself  almost  entirely  to  for- 
mulae, and  the  result  may  give  satisfaction  but  not  be  very  interest- 
ing. But  if  he  has  some  genuine  talent,  there  is  no  need  for  him 
so  to  confine  himself.  He  may  well  invent  new  formulae  of  his 
own  and  compose  passages  which  are  not  formulaic.  Such  a 

1  Like  Beowulf)  Roland  rarely  repeats  complete  lines.  The  only  examples 
are  576  and  3755  ;  2943  and  4001  ;  2646  and  3345  ;  1412  and  3381  ;  828 
and  3613. 


THE  TECHNIQUE   OF  COMPOSITION:    LANGUAGE 

technique  helps  not  only  the  poet  but  the  audience,  which  finds 
the  formulae  restful  and  familiar  and  proper  to  this  kind  of  art. 
At  its  best  this  kind  of  art  can  produce  poetry  as  rich  and  varied 
as  that  of  the  Kara- Kirghiz ;  at  its  worst  it  tends  to  be  conven- 
tional and  jejune,  like  some  Russian  poems.  A  great  change  comes 
with  the  introduction  of  writing  which  allows  a  poet  to  compose 
with  far  greater  care  and  with  much  more  time  at  his  disposal. 
Though  this  allows  him  to  indulge  in  free  composition,  if  he  wishes, 
he  none  the  less  tends  to  use  formulae  to  some  degree,  just  because 
they  are  still  useful  and  traditional.  After  all,  every  poet  has  to 
use  the  means  at  his  disposal,  and,  when  no  other  kind  of  narrative 
poetry  is  known  to  him,  he  will  naturally  compose  as  his  pre- 
decessors have  done  before  him.  vThe  result  is  that  the  difference 
between  oral,  improvised  poetry  and  semi-literate  poetry  is  not 
one  of  kind  but  of  degree.  Both  use  language  in  much  the  same 
way,  even  if  for  different  reasons^  and  though  we  may  rightly 
differentiate  the  art  of  the  Tatars  from  that  of  Roland  or  the 
Elder  Edda,  the  two  are  not  fundamentally  dissimilar,  (in  the  end 
it  remains  true  that  heroic  poetry  remains  faithful  to  its  peculiar 
use  of  language  because  it  has  to  be  recited. ) 


253 


VII 

THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  COMPOSITION: 
DEVICES    OF    NARRATIVE 

JUST  as  the  oral  poet  learns  formulaic  phrases  which  help  him  in 
the  art  of  composition,  so  he  also  learns  certain  devices  which 
enable  him  to  surmount  the  many  difficulties  inherent  in  telling 
a  story.  Through  them  he  knows  how  to  start  and  how  to  finish, 
how  to  cause  suspense  and  to  maintain  interest,  how  to  avoid 
monotony  and  to  vary  the  tone  and  texture  of  his  work.  Of  course 
some  of  these  devices  are  expressed  in  formulae,  but  even  then  the 
placing  of  them  requires  a  sound  judgment  and  a  good  sense  of 
the  audience's  needs,  and  the  poet  shows  his  skill  as  much  in  his 
omission  of  them  when  they  are  not  really  needed  as  in  his  adroit 
use  of  them  when  they  are.  Moreover,  just  as  the  formulae  exist 
because  they  are  useful,  but  develop  their  own  poetical  charm,  so 
the  devices  of  narrative,  which  are  in  the  first  place  indispensable 
to  telling  a  story,  also  develop  their  own  individuality  and  appeal.) 
The  audience  knows  that  they  exist,  expects  them  to  be  used; 
greets  them  as  old  acquaintances,  and  applauds  the  poet  who 
uses  them  expertly.  It  likes  to  see  a  familiar  device  turned  to  a 
new  purpose  or  developed  in  a  new  direction.  In  considering  such 
devices  we  have  of  course  to  ask  what  their  fundamental  use  is  and 
also  what  poetical  success  the  poet  gains  through  them,  how  he 
advances  beyond  their  mere  utility  to  make  them  attractive. 

We  may  first  look  at  repetitions.  \Jn  many  heroic  poems  a 
passage  is  repeated,  almost  word  for  word,  very  soon  after  its  first 
appearance.!  Obviously  this  is  no  accident.  A  simple  example 
may  help  to  illustrate  the  problem.  In  the  Bulgarian  poem  The 
Visit  a  husband  says  at  the  start  to  his  wife  : 

"  Knead  a  white  unleavened  pudding, 
Pour  some  wine  out,  yellow-coloured, 
In  this  yellow  wooden  bottle  ; 
Then,  my  wife,  come,  let  us  travel 
On  a  visit  to  your  mother, 
To  your  mother  and  your  father ; 
For  nine  years  have  come  upon  us 
Since  I  brought  you  from  them  hither  ; 
We  have  visited  them  never. "  l 

1  Dozon,  p.  55  ff. 

254 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

The  wife  at  first  refuses ;  then  the  husband  repeats  his  orders  in 
exactly  the  same  words,  with  the  result  that  we  see  how  insistent 
he  is  and  what  importance  he  attaches  to  his  project.  The  wife 
does  what  she  is  told,  and  the  poet  tells  how  she 

Kneads  a  white,  unleavened  pudding, 
Pours  some  wine  out,  yellow-coloured, 
In  a  yellow  wooden  bottle. 

A  little  later  in  the  poem,  when  they  enter  a  forest,  the  husband 
says  : 

"  Sing,  my  dear,  a  ringing  ditty, 

With  your  own  voice  sing  a  ditty, 

Sounding  like  two  voices  singing, 

So  your  mother  well  may  hear  it, 

Father  and  your  mother  hear  it, 

Know  that  we  come  on  a  visit, 

And  let  them  come  out  to  meet  us." 

Again  the  wife  hesitates,  and  again  the  husband  repeats  his  orders 
in  exactly  the  same  words,  and  again  the  wife  carries  them  out : 

So  she  sang  a  ringing  ditty, 
With  her  own  voice  sang  a  ditty, 
Sounding  like  two  voices  singing. 

This  may  be  unsophisticated,  but  it  is  clearly  conscious  and 
deliberate.  The  whole  poem  has  182  lines,  and  of  these  a  large 
proportion  consists  of  repetitions.  There  must  be  some  explana- 
tion of  it. 

If  we  put  modern  poetry  out  of  our  heads  and  assume,  as  best 
we  can,  the  simple  mentality  of  an  audience  listening  to  this  poem, 
we  begin  to  understand  why  the  poet  uses  this  device.  In  the 
first  place  the  repeated  orders  which  the  husband  gives  and  the 
poet's  repetition  of  them  after  him  show  that  the  details  are 
important  and  intended  to  be  noticed.  They  may  seem  trivial  to 
us,  but  in  the  story  they  have  their  relevance  and  impress  what 
happens  on  the  memory.  Secondly,  the  details  do  not  lose  in 
interest  by  being  repeated.  In  fact,  they  gain.  They  somehow 
assume  a  special  significance,  suited  to  the  simple  mind,  which 
likes  precise  facts  and  feels  at  home  with  them.  It  is  clear  that  the 
husband  has  a  purpose  and  means  to  carry  it  out.  It  may  be  trivial 
but  has  none  the  less  its  own  interest,  which  the  repetitions  make, 
more  vivid  and  suggestive.  Thirdly,  the  device  gives  a  firmer 
personality  both  to  the  husband  and  to  the  wife,  to  him  because 
he  is  so  insistent  and  to  her  because  at  first  she  hesitates  and  then 
obeys.  This  is  a  way  in  which  husbands  and  wives  are  expected 

255 


HEROIC  POETRY 

to  behave,  and  the  emphasis  does  justice  to  it.  Fourthly,  the 
device  is  a  preliminary  to  what  happens  later.  The  husband  and 
his  wife  are  set  upon  by  brigands  who  hear  her  song,  and,  though 
the  husband  kills  the  rest  of  them,  he  fails  to  kill  the  chieftain,  who 
demands  his  wife  from  him,  and  thence  exciting  results  follow. 
Both  the  song  and  the  idea  of  the  visit  which  precedes  it  are  woven 
into  the  story  and  important  to  it.  The  poet  stresses  the  way  in 
which  the  action  starts,  that  the  conclusion  may  be  seen  in  its 
proper  perspective. 

The  art  of  this  little  piece  has  many  parallels  in  heroic  poetry, 
and  in  each  case  the  motives  for  using  it  are  similar  to  those  men- 
tioned above.  A  common  form  is  for  the  poet  first  to  retail  some- 
thing that  happens  and  then  to  make  a  character  repeat  it  in  the 
same  or  almost  the  same  words.  In  the  Russian  poem  which  tells 
of  Ilya's  quarrel  with  Vladimir,  the  device  is  used  with  admirable 
simplicity.  Because  Ilya  is  not  asked  to  Vladimir's  feast,  he  creates 
havoc  in  Kiev : 

He  began  to  wander  through  the  city  of  Kiev, 
And  to  stroll  about  the  holy  mother  churches  ; 
And  he  broke  all  the  crosses  on  the  churches, 
He  shot  off  all  the  gilded  balls. 

This  is  duly  reported  by  a  messenger  to  Vladimir  with  only  such 
changes  of  language  as  are  required  by  a  change  from  the  past  to  the 
present  tense  : 

"  He  wanders  through  the  city  of  Kiev, 
And  strolls  about  the  holy  mother  churches  ; 
And  he  has  broken  all  the  crosses  on  the  churches, 
He  has  shot  off  all  the  gilded  balls. "  ' 

This  repetition  leaves  no  doubt  about  what  Ilya  does  in  his 
offended  pride.  Its  details,  being  curious  and  amusing,  gain  by 
repetition ;  it  illustrates  the  heroic  character  of  Ilya  who  is  not 
likely  to  submit  to  insults  from  Vladimir,  and  it  is  important  to  the 
story,  since  Vladimir  is  so  frightened  by  Ilya's  behaviour  that  he 
decides  to  appease  him  by  asking  him  to  the  feast  after  all. 

Very  similar  is  the  kind  of  repetition  in  which  first  an  order  is 
given  and  later  the  same  words  are  used  as  closely  as  possible  to 
show  that  it  is  carried  out.  So  in  the  Jugoslav  Marriage  of  Djuro 
of  Smerderevo  Marko,  on  arriving  at  Dubrovnik,  gives  orders  to 
his  companions  : 

"  Give  your  horses  up,  but  not  your  weapons, 

And  sit  down  in  armour  at  the  tables, 

Drink  of  the  dark  wine  above  your  weapons." 

1  Gilferding,  ii,  p.  38  ff. ;  Chadwick,  R.H.P.  p.  62. 
25(6 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 
His  orders  are  carried  out : 

They  gave  up  their  horses,  not  their  weapons, 
And  sat  down  in  armour  at  the  tables, 
Drank  of  the  dark  wine  above  their  weapons.1 

Marko  wishes  to  impress  his  host  with  the  power  and  strength  of 
his  warriors,  and  his  action  has  its  bearing  on  the  story  later  when 
he  rescues  his  host's  lady  from  a  dungeon.  The  theme  is  worked  in 
neatly,  since  the  host  asks  why  the  men  behave  like  this,  and  Marko 
answers  with  confident  assurance  that  it  is  a  Serbian  custom ; 
but  the  poet's  real  purpose  in  the  repetition  is  to  stress  a  point 
which  might  otherwise  escape  notice.  Not  all  poets  are  so 
economical  of  the  device  as  this.  Many  delight  in  it  for  its  own 
sake  as  an  almost  ritualistic  procedure  which  imparts  an  additional 
dignity  to  a  point  by  repeating  it.  So  when  the  Canaanite  poet  of 
Aqhat  tells  how  Daniel  decides  to  make  a  tour  of  neighbouring 
lands,  he  first  makes  him  call  to  his  daughter  : 

"  Hearken,  O  Paghat, 

Thou  that  carriest  water  on  thy  shoulders, 

That  brushest  the  dew  from  the  barley, 

That  knowest  the  courses  of  the  stars  ; 

Saddle  an  ass,  hitch  a  foal ; 

Set  upon  it  my  silver  reins, 

My  golden  bridles."  2 

The  poet  goes  on  immediately  to  tell  how  Paghat  carries  out  the 
orders,  and  uses  almost  the  same  words : 

Paghat  obeys, 

Even  she  who  carries  the  water  on  her  shoulders, 

Who  brushes  the  dew  from  the  barley, 

Who  knows  the  courses  of  the  stars  ; 

Straightway  she  saddles  an  ass, 

Straightway  she  hitches  a  foal, 

Straightway  she  lifts  up  her  father, 

Seats  him  on  the  back  of  the  ass, 

On  the  gaily-trapped  back  of  the  foal. 

The  repetition  serves  to  make  perfectly  clear  what  the  orders 
imply,  that  Paghat  is  to  saddle  an  ass  for  her  father  to  ride  upon. 
The  whole  little  action  gains  in  ceremony  by  this  decorous  carrying 
out  of  orders,  but  we  may  suspect  that  the  poet  has  another  motive 
than  this.  Daniel  speaks  to  his  daughter  as  to  one  whose  whole  life 
is  engaged  in  household  tasks  from  dawn  till  dark  —  that  is  why 
she  knows  the  courses  of  the  stars  —  and  this  has  some  importance 
for  the  story,  since  later  Paghat  is  to  prove  that  she  is  much  more 

1   Karadzic,  ii,  p.  437  ff.  2  Caster,  p.  297  ;    Gordon,  p.  95. 

257 


HEROIC  POETRY 

than  this,  when  she  goes  out  to  find  Yatpan,  who  has  killed  her 
brother,  and  kills  him  in  return  for  it. 

Most  repetitions  are  of  only  a  few  lines,  but  sometimes  they 
are  much  longer.  For  instance,  in  the  Canaanite  Keret  the  god 
El  appears  to  Keret  in  a  dream  and  gives  him  precise  instructions 
about  organising  an  expedition  against  Edom  (Udm)  and  marrying 
the  king's  daughter.  This  takes  about  a  hundred  lines,  and  is 
followed  immediately  by  an  account  of  the  same  length,  in  as  far 
as  possible  the  same  words,  in  which  Keret  carries  out  the  instruc- 
tions.1 At  one  or  two  points,  as  in  the  behaviour  of  the  king  of 
Edom,  the  passage  is  slightly  expanded,  but  apart  from  this  it  is  a 
remarkable  case  of  repetition,  which,  even  if  the  whole  poem  were 
of  a  considerable  length,  would  be  very  noticeable.  Of  course  it 
serves  to  show  how  Keret  carries  out  a  god's  commands  and  is  so  far 
what  a  king  ought  to  be.  It  also  illustrates  his  character  in  his 
high-handed  treatment  of  the  king  of  Edom  and  his  insistence  on 
marrying  his  daughter.  But  it  is  difficult  not  to  suspect  that  the 
poet  has  some  other  motive.  Perhaps,  like  the  poet  of  Aqhat,  he 
has  a  ritualistic  feeling  for  what  happens  and  likes  to  make  it  more 
impressive  and  stately  by  repetition.  This  is  the  more  justified 
since  his  theme  concerns  the  relations  of  gods  with  men,  and  may 
appropriately  be  treated  in  the  style  which  the  Semitic  poets  use 
for  religious  subjects.  Indeed  repetition  in  more  than  one  form 
seems  to  be  a  marked  characteristic  of  the  Canaanite  epics,  and  in 
it  we  may  see  the  influence  of  theological  poetry  in  which,  like 
other  Semites,  the  Canaanites  delighted.  Just  as  in  a  hymn  points 
are  stressed  by  frequent  repetition,  so  in  a  story  concerning  the 
gods  it  is  again  used  to  impart  a  religious  dignity. 

Sometimes  the  same  passage  is  repeated  several  times,  but  for 
this  there  is  usually  a  special  reason.  The  poet  has  something  out 
of  the  way  to  say  and  feels  that  it  must  be  repeated  if  it  is  to  make 
its  full  impression.  A  simple  example  comes  from  the  Ossete 
The  Last  Expedition  of  Uryzmag.  The  hero,  Uryzmag,  is  taken 
prisoner  and  shut  up  in  a  tower  by  a  giant.  He  offers  ransom  in 
mysterious  terms,  which  the  giant  foolishly  accepts  without  know- 
ing what  they  mean : 

"  We  offer  ten  thousand  cattle,  each  with  one  horn, 
And  ten  thousand  cattle,  each  with  two  horns, 
And  ten  thousand  cattle,  each  with  three  horns, 
And  ten  thousand  cattle,  each  with  four  horns, 
And  ten  thousand  cattle,  each  with  five  horns."  2 

1  Gordon,  p.  68  ff. 
2  Dynnik,  p.  21  ff.  ;   cf.  Dum£zil,  pp.  45-6. 

258 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

This  formula  occurs  three  times  more,  first  when  Uryzmag  tells 
it  to  the  messenger  who  is  to  carry  the  news  of  the  offer  to  the 
Narts,  then  by  the  messenger  to  the  Narts,  then  by  the  Narts  them- 
selves, when,  puzzled  by  the  words,  they  take  them  to  their  wise 
woman,  Satana,  for  elucidation.  The  message  is  cryptic  and 
oracular  and  central  to  the  plot,  since  through  it  Uryzmag  conveys 
instructions  which  are  unintelligible  to  his  captor  and  which  only 
Satana  will  understand.  As  she  expounds  it,  it  means  : 

"  An  ox  with  one  horn,  that  is  a  warrior  with  an  axe, 
An  ox  with  two  horns,  that  is  a  warrior  on  horse-back, 
An  ox  with  three  horns,  that  is  a  horseman  with  a  spear, 
An  ox  with  four  horns,  that  is  a  spearman  in  a  breast-plate, 
An  ox  with  five  horns,  that  is  a  warrior  in  full  armour." 

The  passage  occurs  four  times  because  it  is  alluring  in  itself,  shows 
Uryzmag's  craft  and  Satana 's  wisdom,  and  is  essential  to  the  story, 
since  through  this  message  Uryzmag  outwits  his  captor  and  is  in 
due  course  delivered  by  an  army  of  Narts. 

A  special  type  of  repetition  is  that  in  which  an  action  is  itself 
repeated.  The  poet  may  do  this  to  stress  the  emotional  character 
of  a  situation,  or  to  provide  a  contrast  with  something  that  is  to 
come  later.  A  striking  example  of  the  first  may  be  seen  in  the 
First  Lay  of  Guthrun.  The  scene  is  set  after  Sigurth's  death,  when 
Guthrun  is  so  broken  with  grief  that  she  sits  by  his  body  without 
speaking  or  even  weeping.  Wives  of  other  warriors  come  and  try 
to  comfort  her  by  telling  of  their  own  sorrows.  First,  Gjaflaug  tells 
how  she  has  lost  five  husbands  and  eight  brothers.  But  Guthrun 
says  nothing  : 

Grieving  could  not      Guthrun  weep, 
Such  grief  she  had      for  her  husband  dead, 
And  so  grim  her  heart      by  the  hero's  body.1 

Then  Herborg,  at  greater  length  than  Gjaflaug,  tells  another  tragic 
tale,  but  again  Guthrun  remains  silent,  and  again  the  poet  uses  the 
same  three  lines.  The  repetition  is  extraordinarily  effective.  It 
shows  that  Guthrun  has  not  noticed  what  is  happening  but  remains 
frozen  in  her  grief.  This  type  of  repetition  may  be  slightly  varied 
to  produce  a  somewhat  different  effect.  So  in  an  Armenian  poem, 
when  Sasoun  is  in  danger,  Mher  the  Younger  goes  to  call  on  the 
spirits  of  his  parents.  He  first  summons  his  mother,  and  from 
under  the  earth  a  voice  answers  : 

"  My  son,  how  can  I  help  you  ? 
My  son,  how  can  I  help  you  ? 

1   Guthrunarkvitha^  i,  5. 
259 


HEROIC  POETRY 

There  is  no  blood  in  my  face, 

The  light  of  my  eyes  has  long  gone  out. 

Scorpions  and  snakes 

Have  plaited  their  nests  above  me. 

You  have  had  enough  of  wandering,  my  son, 

Enough  of  wandering  .  .  . 

Your  place  is  at  the  Bird  Rock, 

Go  up  to  the  Bird  Rock."  l 

Mher  then  calls  on  his  father's  spirit  and  receives  almost  an 
identical  answer  but  with  the  important  addition  that  he  is  to  dwell 
alive  in  a  cave  until  the  end  of  the  world.  Mher's  strange  destiny 
is  not  revealed  until  he  has  repeated  his  question,  and  the  repeated 
answer  gives  a  special  force  to  the  final  message  when  it  comes. 

A  special  form  of  this  kind  of  repetition  is  when  the  poet  deals 
with  a  ritual  which  demands  that  an  action  should  be  performed 
several  times  in  succession.  The  Canaanite  Aqhat,  which  is 
considerably  interested  in  Semitic  rites,  does  this  at  least  twice. 
When  Daniel  decides  to  ask  the  gods  for  a  son,  he  performs  the 
rite  of  incubation  and  stays  as  a  suppliant  in  a  sanctuary  in  order 
to  obtain  an  oracle  by  a  dream  or  some  other  means.  After  telling 
how  Daniel  goes  to  the  sanctuary,  the  poet  describes  his  actions  for 
seven  days,  on  each  of  which  he  does  the  same  thing  : 

Behold  one  day  and  a  second, 

Clothed  in  the  loincloth, 

Clothed  in  the  loincloth,  Daniel  gives  food  to  the  gods, 

Clothed  in  the  loincloth,  he  gives  drink  to  the  holy  ones.2 

This  is  repeated  once  for  the  third  and  fourth  days,  and  once  again 
for  the  fifth,  sixth,  and  seventh  days.  On  the  seventh  day  Daniel's 
prayers  are  answered.  Here  the  repetition  of  the  action,  and  the 
even  more  emphatic  repetition  of  its  elements,  stress  its  ritual 
nature.  So  later  in  the  poem,  when  the  son  is  born,  Daniel  cele- 
brates it  with  a  feast  and  invites  "  daughters  of  melody  "  to  his 
house.  Just  as  modern  Arabs  celebrate  the  birth  of  a  child  with 
seven  days  of  entertainment  by  female  singers  and  musicians,  so 
Daniel  does  the  same,  and  the  poet  emphasises  the  formality  of  the 
occasion  by  a  series  of  repetitions,  of  which  the  first  sets  the 
pattern  : 

Behold,  for  one  day  and  a  second 

He  gave  the  singing  women  to  eat, 

And  the  daughters  of  melody,  the  Swallows,  to  drink. 

This  happens  again,  in  very  much  the  same  words,  for  the  third 
and  fourth  days,  and  again  for  the  fifth  and  sixth : 

1  David  Sasunskiiy  p.  324  ff.  *  Caster,  p.  270. 

260 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

Then  on  the  seventh  day, 

The  singing  women  depart  from  his  house, 

The  daughters  of  melody,  the  Swallows.1 

The  unpretentious  device  conveys  the  solemn,  formal  character 
of  the  feast. 

A  poet  may  also  use  repetition  to  show  the  difference  between 
a  first  and  a  second  occasion  or  to  provide  a  kind  of  rehearsal  for 
an  action  performed  fully  later.  Two  events  are  thus  brought 
together,  and  the  second  becomes  more  significant  through  its 
association  with  the  first,  especially  if  the  full  implications  of  what 
happens  are  not  revealed  till  the  second  occasion.  This  is  done 
with  skilful  effect  in  the  Norse  Lay  of  Volund.  When  Volund 
plots  vengeance  on  Nithuth,  he  decides  to  kill  Nithuth's  sons. 
One  day  the  two  boys  come  to  his  house,  and  he  shows  them  a 
chest  filled  with  gold  : 

They  came  to  the  chest,      and  they  craved  the  keys, 
The  evil  was  open      when  in  they  looked  ; 
To  the  boys  it  seemed      that  gems  they  saw, 
Gold  in  plenty      and  precious  stones.2 

This  looks  harmless  enough,  but  the  words  "  the  evil  was  open  " 
are  a  dark  and  ambiguous  hint  of  something  to  come.  The  chest 
is  called  "  the  evil  "  not  on  the  principle  that  all  gold  is  evil  but 
because  it  is  to  be  the  cause  of  the  boys*  deaths.  As  we  read  the 
words,  we  do  not  sec  any  great  significance  in  them,  but  their  full 
purport  is  revealed  later.  The  boys  go  away  after  being  invited  to 
come  back  the  next  day.  They  come  back,  go  to  the  chest,  and  are 
killed.  The  poet  picks  up  the  theme  by  repeating  two  lines  and 
then  shows  what  he  has  had  in  mind  all  the  time  : 

They  came  to  the  chest,      and  they  craved  the  keys, 
The  evil  was  open      when  in  they  looked  ; 
He  smote  off  their  heads,      and  their  feet  he  hid 
Under  the  sooty      straps  of  the  bellows.3 

The  repetition  here  is  used  with  subtle  art.  The  first  time  is  a 
kind  of  rehearsal  for  the  second,  when  the  words  "  the  evil  " 
reveal  their  full  significance  in  the  light  of  Volund 's  merciless  trick. 

Emphasis  is  the  special  task  of  repetitions,  but  it  is  not  always 
needed,  and  the  poet  is  not  compelled  to  repeat  passages  even  when 
we  expect  him  to  do  so.  He  may  wish  to  create  some  other  effect, 
notably  surprise,  by  keeping  something  in  reserve  so  that,  after 
telling  how  a  command  is  given,  he  then,  somewhat  differently, 
tells  how  it  is  carried  out.  So  when  the  Russian  poet  relates  how 

1  Idem,  p.  277.  2   Volundarkvitha,  21.  3  Ibid.  24. 

261 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Nightingale  Budimirovich  visits  Prince  Vladimir,  he  stresses  the 
visitor's  wealth  and  state,  especially  in  the  orders  which  he  gives 
before  disembarking  from  his  ship  : 

"  Lower  a  silver  gangway, 

Lower  a  second  one  covered  with  gold, 

Lower  a  third  of  whale-bone. 

Take  pleasant  gifts, 

Marten-skins  and  fox-furs  from  foreign  lands/' 

The  main  impression  is  made,  and  there  is  no  need  to  repeat  all  the 
details  in  the  same  words.  But,  since  our  curiosity  has  been 
aroused  by  the  unusual  orders  about  the  gangways,  the  poet  must 
explain  what  they  mean  and  does  so  by  varying  the  form  of  words  : 

They  took  the  gifts  in  their  white  hands ; 

His  mother  took  figured  damask, 

And  he  himself  his  lyre  of  maple-wood, 

And  he  crossed  the  gilded  gangway, 

His  mother  crossed  the  silver  one, 

And  all  his  company  the  gangway  of  whale-bone.1 

Here  it  is  a  question  not  of  emphasising  something  important  to 
the  plot  but  of  drawing  attention  to  the  special  character  of 
Nightingale's  visit.  Our  curiosity  is  first  aroused  and  then 
satisfied. 

Since  repetitions  are  an  accepted  part  of  a  poet's  art,  it  is 
natural  that  he  should  play  with  them  and  vary  their  use.  One 
variation  is  to  turn  them  to  an  unexpected  result.  An  order  is  given 
but  not  carried  out,  or  an  intention  stated  but  not  fulfilled.  Then 
the  poet  repeats  his  formula  fully  but  with  negatives  throughout  to 
show  the  failure  of  some  plan  or  idea.  A  simple  example  of  this 
comes  from  the  Jugoslav  Marko's  Ploughing,  a  short  poem  whose 
appeal  turns  almost  wholly  on  such  a  point.  Marko's  mother  is 
tired  of  her  son's  endless  fights  with  the  Turks  and  tells  him  to  take 
to  a  different  kind  of  life  : 

"  Take  thou  up  the  plough  and  take  thou  oxen, 
Plough  with  them  the  hill  and  plough  the  valley, 
Then,  my  son,  sow  thou  thereon  the  wheat-seed." 

Marko  half  obeys  his  mother,  but  not  entirely  : 

He  took  up  the  plough,  and  he  took  oxen, 

But  he  ploughed  not  either  hill  or  valley, 

But  he  ploughed  with  them  the  Sultan's  highway.2 

1  Gilferding,  i,  p.  15?  ;vtChadwick,  R.H.P.  p.  118. 
2  Karadzid,  ii,  p.  403. 

262 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

The  result  is  that  he  is  soon  engaged  in  fight  again  with  the  Turks, 
kills  them,  and  comes  back  with  their  gold  to  his  mother : 

"  See  ",  said  he,  "  what  I  have  done  with  ploughing." 

The  formula  is  more  or  less  preserved,  but  the  effect  is  unexpected, 
and  the  repetition  is  skilfully  used  to  stress  the  strange  result. 
Somewhat  similar  is  the  art  of  the  Bulgarian  The  Beginnings  of 
the  Turkish  Empire.  The  villagers  tell  their  leader  that  they  have 
forgotten  God  and  must  build  churches.  He  takes  up  their  words 
and  makes  an  ingenious  use  of  them  by  what  is  in  effect  a  double 
repetition.  He  says  that  it  is  useless  to  build  churches,  but  that 
none  the  less  they  must  build  them  : 

"  'Tis  not  fitting  to  build  churches, 
All  of  gold  and  all  of  silver  ; 
For  our  empire  will  be  finished, 
And  the  Turkish  empire  starting. 
They  will  break  to  bits  the  churches, 
Of  the  silver  fashion  saddles, 
Melt  the  gold  down  into  bridles  ; 
Let  us  none  the  less  build  churches, 
Made  of  white  stone  and  of  marble, 
With  white  chalk  and  yellow  plaster." 
To  his  words  the  townsfolk  listened, 
And  began  to  build  the  churches 
Made  of  white  stone  and  of  marble, 
With  white  chalk  and  yellow  plaster.1 

The  movement  is  more  complicated  than  in  Marko's  Ploughing, 
but  the  variation  on  the  repeated  phrases,  first  negative,  and  then 
positive,  applies  a  familiar  technique  with  neatness  and  ingenuity. 
An  impressive  example  of  negative  repetition  comes  from 
Gilgamish.  Gilgamish  wishes  to  summon  the  ghost  of  his  dead 
comrade,  Enkidu,  and  sets  about  the  task  with  some  cunning.  He 
asks  what  he  must  do  to  avoid  being  haunted  by  the  dead  and 
receives  elaborate,  explicit  instructions  : 

"  If  thou  comest  to  the  temple,  put  on  clean  clothing  ; 

Like  a  townsman  shalt  thou  come  to  it. 

Be  not  anointed  with  sweet  oil  from  a  cruse, 

Nor  let  its  fragrance  gather  around  thee  ; 

Set  not  bow  to  the  earth, 

Lest  those  shot  down  by  thy  bow  gather  around  thee  ; 

Carry  not  a  stick  in  thy  hand, 

Lest  ghosts  gibber  against  thee  ; 

Put  no  shoe  on  the  sole  of  thy  foot, 

Nor  make  a  sound  on  the  ground  ; 

1  Dozon,  p.  67. 

263  s 


HEROIC  POETRY 

The  wife  whom  thou  lovest,  kiss  her  not, 
The  wife  whom  thou  hatest,  chastise  her  not ; 
The  child  whom  thou  lovest,  kiss  him  not, 
The  child  whom  thou  hatest,  chastise  him  not."  1 

Gilgamish  then  does  just  the  opposite  of  what  he  is  told,  and  the 
poet  tells  of  this  in  the  same  order  and  with  only  such  changes  as 
are  required  by  Gilgamish's  violation  of  the  rules.  The  art  of 
repetition  receives  a  new  and  subtle  turn,  and  it  is  clear  that  the 
poet  is  a  master  of  it. 

In  such  repetitions  there  may  be  a  number  of  different  items, 
each  of  which  has  its  own  importance,  and  it  is  essential  that  each 
should  be  equally  emphatic.  For  this  reason  an  ingenious  method 
is  sometimes  used  by  which  the  items  are  first  stated  in  one  order 
and  then  repeated  in  the  reverse  order.  The  reason  for  this  is 
that  in  absorbing  such  lists  the  audience,  in  its  interest  in  what  is 
coming  later,  may  forget  what  comes  earlier,  and  this  technique 
serves  to  keep  all  the  items  fresh  in  the  memory.  A  charming 
example  comes  from  the  Jugoslav  Marko  drinks  Wine  in  Ramadan, 
which  begins  with  an  order  given  by  the  Sultan  and  with  Marko's 
immediate  disregard  of  it : 

Sultan  Suleiman  gave  cry  an  order, 
That  no  man  should  drink  of  wine  in  Ramadan, 
That  no  man  should  put  on  green  apparel, 
That  no  man  should  gird  a  sword  about  him, 
That  no  man  should  dance  a  dance  with  women. 
Only  Marko  danced  a  dance  with  women, 
Marko  girded  on  a  well-forged  sabre, 
Marko  garbed  himself  in  green  apparel, 
Marko  drank  of  wine,  red  wine,  in  Ramadan.2 

By  this  neat  device  all  the  items  in  Marko 's  behaviour  are  kept 
clear  and  emphatic,  and  there  is  a  certain  charm  in  the  way  in 
which  they  are  repeated  in  reverse  order,  so  that  the  drinking  of 
wine  stands  out  as  his  chief  offence. 

The  same  technique  is  used  by  Homer,  especially  in  dealing 
with  complicated  questions  and  answers.  For  instance,  when 
Odysseus  arrives  as  an  unknown  stranger  at  the  court  of  Alcinous, 
the  queen,  Arete,  asks  him  three  questions,  who  is  he,  who  gave 
him  his  garments  (which  she  recognises  as  belonging  to  her  own 
household),  and  whether  he  came  over  the  sea.  Odysseus  answers 
these  questions  in  the  opposite  order.  First,  he  tells  at  some 
length  of  his  wanderings  at  sea ;  next,  he  says  that  he  landed  naked 
and  that  Arete's  daughter,  Nausicaa,  gave  him  the  garments  which 

1  Gilgamish,  xii,  i,  15-27.  2  Karadzic,  ii,  p.  395. 

264 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

he  is  wearing ;  his  name  he  does  not  tell  but  keeps  in  reserve  to 
surprise  his  hosts  later.1  Again,  when  Odysseus  meets  the  ghost 
of  his  mother,  he  asks  her  a  series  of  questions,  seven  in  all,  about 
her  own  death,  did  she  die  of  disease  or  by  the  gentle  arrows 
of  Artemis,  about  Laertes  and  about  Telemachus,  whether  his 
estates  and  power  are  safe  or  have  been  taken  by  another,  and  about 
Penelope.  His  mother  answers  these  questions  in  exactly  the 
opposite  order,  beginning  with  news  of  Penelope,  then  tells  him 
that  no  one  has  taken  his  power  and  estates  which  are  safe,  con- 
tinues with  Telemachus  and  Laertes,  and  ends  by  saying  that  she 
herself  died  not  from  the  gentle  arrows  of  Artemis,  nor  from 
disease,  but  for  longing  for  Odysseus.2  Not  only  is  the  audience 
kept  fully  aware  of  the  situation  in  its  many  aspects,  but  Homer 
secures  a  wonderful  effect  through  the  last  words  which  come  as  a 
triumphant  climax. 

The  repetitions  so  far  considered  belong  to  a  special  department 
of  the  poet's  technique  which  is  concerned  with  stressing  some- 
thing within  a  short  space.  Each  time  the  passage  is  repeated  we 
recall  that  it  has  already  been  used  and  relate  its  later  appearances 
to  its  earlier.  When  a  poet  composes,  as  Homer  does,  on  a  large 
scale,  the  use  of  repetition  may  be  different.  He  has  his  recurring 
formulaic  passages  for  many  kinds  of  action,  and  he  uses  them 
frequently.  Nor,  when  he  repeats  a  passage  after  a  considerable 
interval,  do  we  necessarily  remember  where  it  last  appeared  and 
what  purpose  it  then  served.  But  Homer  uses  these  repetitions 
with  discrimination.  He  does  not  introduce  them  on  every  suit- 
able occasion  but  varies  their  introduction  to  mark  stages  or  em- 
phasis in  his  story.  He  has,  for  instance,  a  set  of  eight  lines  which 
tell  how  a  guest  is  washed  and  fed,  and  in  the  Odyssey  he  uses  this 
six  times,  but  always  as  a  prelude  to  some  new  development  in  the 
action  —  for  the  first  appearance  of  Athene  in  Ithaca  which  sets 
the  plot  going,3  for  the  first  colloquy  between  Telemachus  and 
Menelaus  which  precedes  the  stories  of  what  happened  to  the 
heroes  of  Troy,4  for  the  reception  of  Odysseus  in  Phaeacia  with 
its  promise  that  he  will  be  sent  safely  home,5  for  the  moment  when 
Circe  has  promised  to  turn  back  his  comrades  into  their  proper 
human  shape,6  for  the  departure  of  Telemachus  from  Sparta  with 
its  propitious  omens  and  Helen's  prophecy  of  success,7  and  for 
Telemachus'  story  of  his  adventures  to  Penelope  with  the  solemn 
words  of  the  seer,  Theoclymenus,  that  Odysseus  has  already 

1   Od.  vii,  237  ff.  2  Ibid,  xi,  171-203  ;   cf.  Bassett,  pp.  120-22. 

3  Od.  i,  136  ff.  ?  Ibid,  iv,  52  ff.  s  Ibid,  vii,  172  ff. 

6  Ibid,  x,  368  ff.  7  Ibid,  xv,  135  ff. 

265 


HEROIC  POETRY 

arrived  in  Ithaca.1  On  other  occasions  guests  arrive  and  the 
formulaic  passage  might  be  used,  but  it  is  not,  and  the  natural 
conclusion  is  that  it  creates  an  effect  which  prepares  us  for  new 
developments.  It  gives  a  pause  in  the  action  and  leads  us  from  one 
episode  to  another.  Not  all  poets  are  so  skilful  at  this  as  Homer,  but 
the  use  of  the  set  passage  in  the  long  poem  is  not  simply  a  con- 
venience for  the  poet ;  it  can  also  do  a  special  work  in  its  context. 

Homer  also  illustrates  the  art  of  omitting  set  passages  unless 
they  have  something  special  to  do.  He  has,  for  instance,  a  form  of 
several  lines  which  tells  how  a  warrior  arms.  But  he  does  not  use 
it  invariably.  When  all  is  ready  for  the  duel  between  Hector  and 
Ajax,  he  says  no  more  than  Ajax  "  armed  himself  in  bright 
bronze  ".2  He  uses  similar  shortened  forms  for  the  arming  of 
Paris,  Idomeneus,  and  Athene.3  But  on  four  occasions  he  uses  a 
full  form,  and  each  has  its  significance.  The  first  is  before  the  duel 
between  Paris  and  Menelaus,  which  is  the  first  fighting  in  the  Iliad 
and  the  prelude  to  the  general  battle ; 4  the  second  is  when 
Agamemnon,  in  the  absence  of  Achilles,  prepares  for  a  great 
onslaught ;  5  the  third  is  before  the  counter-attack  led  by  Patroclus 
which  saves  the  Achaean  forces  from  destruction  and  drives  the 
Trojans  back  to  Troy ;  6  and  the  fourth  is  when  Achilles  finally 
decides  to  go  back  to  the  fight.7  Each  is  a  special  occasion  since  it 
marks  a  new  and  important  stage  in  the  development  of  the  action. 
It  is  true  that  the  four  cases  are  not  quite  alike,  and  that  in  each 
Homer,  after  using  a  set  form  for  the  start,  then  adds  to  it  differ- 
ently in  each  case.  But  this  only  shows  how  he  sees  each  occasion 
in  its  own  light  and  adapts  his  formula  to  it  with  some  piece  of 
relevant  information  about  Agamemnon's  shield  and  breast-plate 
or  the  chariot  and  horses  of  Patroclus  and  Achilles.  Homer  is  such 
a  master  of  his  craft  that  he  makes  his  formulaic  passages  vary 
with  their  contexts  and  the  needs  of  his  narrative. 

Repetitions  are  commonest  in  formulaic  poetry  but  there  is 
one  important  feature  of  this  style  which  survives  in  almost  all 
branches  of  heroic  verse.  Similes  have  their  roots  very  deep  in 
poetical  art.  They  are  already  impressive  in  Gilgamish,  where 
Enkidu's  hair  sprouts  "  like  barley  " ;  he  himself  sways  "  like 
mountain  corn  " ;  Gilgamish  laments  for  him  "  like  a  wailing 
woman  "  or  "  like  a  lioness  robbed  of  her  cubs  " ;  in  the  Flood 
bodies  glut  the  sea  "  like  fish-spawn  " ;  the  tempest  and  the 
deluge  fight  "  likeT  an  embattled  army  " ;  the  gods  come  to  a 

1  Od.  xvii,  91  ff.  2  //.  vii,  206. 

3  Ibid,  vi,  504  ;  xiii,  241  ;  viii,  388.  4  Ibid,  iii,  328  ff. 

«  Ibid,  xi,  16  ff.  6  Ibid,  xvi,  130  ff.          '      7  Ibid,  xix,  369  ff. 

266 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

sacrifice  "  like  flies  " ;  sleep  comes  "  like  a  breeze  ".  Similes, 
as  Gilgamish  uses  them,  belong  to  a  very  ancient  habit  of  speech. 
They  do  something  which  direct  description  cannot  do,  in  stressing 
aspects  of  a  situation  which  appeal  to  the  eye  or  the  feelings  but 
are  too  indeterminate  for  direct  statement.  No  doubt  a  highly 
developed  language  might  say  the  same  kind  of  thing,  without 
resorting  to  similes,  by  some  precise  account  of  what  happens. 
But,  even  so,  much  would  be  lost,  since  the  simile  catches  those 
emotional  and  imaginative  associations  which  lie  beyond  the  reach 
of  literal  statement.  The  simile  is  as  essential  to  heroic  poetry  as 
to  any  other  because  it  conveys  fleeting  shades  and  tones  which 
would  otherwise  be  lost. 

Comparisons  may  be  extremely  simple  and  short,  and  in 
most  heroic  poetry  similes  consist  of  a  very  few  words.  Such 
are  to  be  found  constantly  in  Homer,  as  when  he  says  that  a 
shield  is  "  like  a  tower  ",  that  Apollo  comes  down  "  like  the 
night  ",  that  Thetis  rises  from  the  sea  "  like  a  mist  ",  that  a 
cloud  is  "  blacker  than  pitch  ",  that  Agamemnon  surveys  his 
forces  "  like  a  ram  ",  that  Athene  comes  "  like  a  sea-bird  ", 
that  warriors  are  "  like  lions  or  boars  ".  Such  comparisons  are 
immediately  to  the  point ;  they  illuminate  the  situation  for  a 
moment,  and  then  the  poet  goes  on  with  the  story.  This  kind  of 
illustration  serves  a  truly  poetical  purpose  in  bringing  together 
things  which  are  commonly  kept  apart.  The  poet  almost  identifies 
one  object  with  another  and  creates  in  the  minds  of  his  hearers  a 
similar  identification.  When  Homer's  gods  descend  like  the  night 
or  rise  like  the  mist,  they  are  for  the  moment  almost  equated  with 
night  or  mist  and  have  such  a  look  and  movement.  In  such  com- 
parisons a  real  element  of  identity  is  presupposed,  and  to  this  the 
poet  draws  attention. 

(^At  the  same  time  a  simile  not  only  illustrates  but  creates  a 
special  effect  because  it  is  drawn  from  some  sphere  of  reality  not 
closely  related  to  that  in  which  the  action  itself  takes  place.  It 
turns  our  minds  to  this  and  makes  us  for  the  moment  forget  the 
action  in  the  thought  of  something  else.  It  thus  gives  relief  and 
respite,  especially  in  accounts  of  battle  and  fighting  which  may  not 
be  monotonous  to  their  right  hearers  but  at  least  tend  to  awake  a 
narrow  range  of  emotional  response.^)  The  excitements  and  the 
thrills  of  fighting,  even  the  pity  and  fear  which  it  arouses,  may  come 
in  so  strong  a  flood  as  to  overwhelm  us  and  dull  our  sensibilities. 
Even  the  smallest  simile  may  help  in  this  and  enable  us  to  regain 
our  interest.  So  when  a  Jugoslav  herd  leaps  to  the  attack, 
As  a  mountain  falcon  spreads  its  pinions, 


HEROIC  POETRY 

we  not  only  see  him  more  vividly  but  feel  differently  about  him. 
The  mention  of  the  bird  conjures  up  a  different  world  of  experience 
and  adds  a  new  note  of  colour  to  the  picture.  The  small  simile 
nearly  always  has  this  effect,  even  when  it  is  not  concerned  with 
battle.  It  takes  our  minds  momentarily  away  from  the  scenes  of 
violence,  and  so  refreshes  them  and  enables  them  to  listen  again 
with  a  new  attention. 

The  size  and  character  of  similes  vary  considerably  from  one 
class  of  heroic  poetry  to  another.  There  are  even  some  poems 
which  lack  them  altogether,  like  Hildebrand  and  Maldon.  These 
poems  are  short,  and  it  may  be  that  in  their  restricted  compass 
poets  do  not  feel  any  need  to  embellish  the  story,  but  give  all  their 
time  to  making  the  most  of  its  essential  facts.  Or  it  may  be  that 
their  temper  is  so  austerely  heroic  that  even  a  simile  is  felt  to  be 
out  of  place,  an  unnecessary  decoration  or  unworthy  concession  to 
human  frailty.  Certainly  these  two  cases  seem  to  be  exceptional. 
Similes  occur  in  Beowulf  and  in  the  Elder  Edda,  and  there  is  no 
reason  to  think  that  they  did  not  exist  in  the  old  Germanic  poetry 
which  lies  behind  both  Hildebrand  and  Maldon^  There  is  also  a 
comparative  paucity  of  similes  in  the  Armenian  poems,  and  here 
there  is  no  question  of  space,  since  the  poets  compose  on  quite  a 
generous  scale.  But  this  art,  as  it  is  now  practised,  must  have  lost 
much  which  it  once  had,  and  the  comparative  absence  of  similes  is 
probably  due  to  the  passage  of  time  which  has  taken  away  much 
else.  (^With  these  exceptions,  for  which  there  may  be  special 
reasons,  similes  are  to  be  found  in  most  heroic  poetry  wherever  it 
exists. ) 

Similes  are  usually  short  and  consist  of  no  more  than  a  few 
words.  That  this  is  in  origin  formulaic  is  clear  not  merely  from 
Homer  but  from  other  poets  who  improvise  or  are  close  to  im- 
provisation.") It  is,  for  instance,  normal  in  Jugoslav  poems,  where 
warriors  are  "  like  burning  coals  "  or  "  mountain  wolf-packs  ", 
with  moustaches  "  black  as  midnight  ",  or  roar  for  booty  "  like 
bullocks ",  where  a  woman  hisses  "  like  a  furious  serpent ", 
villages  rise  in  revolt  "  like  the  grass-blades  ",  bullets  fly  "  like 
hailstones  from  the  sky  ",  women  lament  "  like  cuckoos  "  or 
"  like  swallows  ",  men  ride  together  "  like  a  pair  of  pigeons  "  or 
"  like  two  tall  mountains  ",  a  warrior  casts  his  cudgel  "  like  a 
maiden  playing  with  an  apple  ",  a  man's  throat  is  slit  "  like  a 
white  lamb's  ",  eyes  pierce  through  the  darkness  "  like  a  prowling 
wolf's  at  midnight  ",  or  a  horse  races  "  like  a  star  across  the  cloud- 
less heavens  ".  Similes  of  this  kind  are  much  less  common  in 
Russian  poems,  but  they  have  their  part  in  the  Russian  tradition 

268 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

and  may  be  seen  in  the  Tale  of  Igor's  Raid,  where  warriors  run 
like  wolves,  fly  like  falcons,  creep  like  weasels,  swim  like  ducks. 
As  we  shall  see,  the  characteristic  Russian  simile  is  different,  but 
the  ordinary  simile  is  known  to  the  poets  who  tell  how  ships  fly 
"  like  falcons  "  or  "  like  white  hawks  ",  or  how  the  heathen  are 
"  like  black  crows  ",  or  roar  "  like  beasts  ". 

The  Asiatic  peoples  are  quite  as  fond  of  similes  as  the  Euro- 
pean. The  poetry  of  the  Kara-Kirghiz  abounds  in  them.  Warriors 
are  commonly  compared  to  leopards  or  camels  or  tigers  or  bears ; 
their  eyes  are  like  flames ;  a  woman's  eyes  sparkle  like  mirrors ; 
tears  are  like  drops  of  rain  or  hail  in  spring  ;  words  are  like  hawks. 
The  Kalmucks  have  an  equal  abundance.  A  flag  is  like  the  yellow 
sun ;  a  hero  beautiful  as  the  meeting  of  friends ;  dust  rises  like 
the  white  clouds  of  the  sky ;  deer  are  as  numerous  as  the  stars ; 
tears  are  like  hail ;  warriors  are  like  lions ;  a  woman's  face  is  like 
the  full  moon.  Despite  the  small  scale  of  their  composition,  the 
Ossetes  manage  to  introduce  similes  into  their  poems  and  tell  how 
a  warrior  disguises  himself  in  a  skin  "  like  a  leathern  bottle  ",  or 
strikes  at  his  enemy  "  like  an  arrow  ",  or  roars  "  like  thunder  in 
the  sky  ",  or  looks  at  his  opponent  "  as  an  eagle  looks  at  a  spar- 
row ",  how  a  man  disappears  "  like  water  poured  from  a  cup  on 
the  sand  ".  Such  similes  are  certainly  formulaic,  since  they  are 
repeated  when  there  is  need  for  them.  They  add  to  the  variety  of 
the  poetry,  and  their  repetition  contributes  to  the  general  effect. 

LXhe  same  art  can  be  seen  in  a  modified  form  in  poems  which 
have  moved  further  from  improvisation,  and  prove  that  this  device 
still  has  its  charm  and  usefulness.  In  Beowulf  the  work  of  such 
similes  is  largely  done  by  the  "  kennings  ",  but  there  are  a  few 
genuine  similes  like 

The  foamy-flecked  floater      to  a  fowl  best  likened  (218). 

In  his  eyes  there  shone 
The  leaping  flame  likest      a  light  unlovely  (727-8). 

Was  the  stem  of  each  nail      to  steel  best  likened  (985).  j 

In  Roland  there  are  no  "  kennings  "  but  there  are  some  simple 
similes.  The  Franks  are  "  fiercer  than  lions  ",  the  Saracens 
"  blacker  than  ink  on  the  pen  ",  a  man's  head  "  white  as  a  flower 
in  summer ",  bears  "  white  as  driven  snows  ",  a  horseman 
"  swifter  than  a  falcon  ".  As  the  poet  gets  further  away  from 
formulae,  he  uses  similes  less  freely,  but  when  he  uses  them,  they 
are  clearly  traditional.  He  owes  them  to  an  ancient  art  and  at 
times  resorts  to  them  to  make  a  point  clear. 

A  special  kind  of  simile,  found  chiefly  in  Slavonic  countries 

269 


HEROIC  POETRY 

and  often  called  "  epic  antithesis  ",  is  really  a  negative  comparison. 
In  it  a  statement  is  first  made  or  a  question  asked  ;  then  it  is  con- 
tradicted or  denied.  This  device  enables  the  poet  to  hint  at  a 
state  of  mind  and  then  to  make  it  clear,  and  in  so  doing  to  give  a 
fuller  significance  to  what  he  describes  by  creating  expectation 
and  surprise.  The  first  traces  of  this  can  be  seen  in  the  Tale  of 
Igor's  Raid,  when  Igor  escapes  from  the  Polovtsy  : 

It  was  not  the  magpies  chattering ; 

In  pursuit  of  Igor 

Gzak  rides  with  Konchak. 

This  reflects  a  natural  experience.  First  a  sound  is  suggested, 
which  might  be  the  chatter  of  magpies ;  then  it  is  clear  that  it  is 
something  else,  the  chatter  of  Igor's  pursuers.  But  the  impression 
of  a  simile  remains  because  the  sound  of  the  pursuit  is  really  like 
the  confused  babble  of  magpies.  This  device  is  found  in  all 
branches  of  Slavonic  poetry,  and  may  well  be  an  inheritance  from 
a  distant  past.  A  good  example  comes  from  the  Bulgarian  Death 
of  the  Warrior  Marko  : 

With  a  red  light  was  the  sunrise  flaming 
On  the  beautiful  Wallachian  country. 
No,  it  was  not  sunrise  in  the  heaven  ; 
'Twas  his  mother  seeking  her  son,  Marko.1 

Precisely  the  same  device  is  used  by  Ukrainian  poets,  as  when 
captives  lament  in  prison  : 

On  Holy  Sunday  it  is  not  the  grey-blue  eagles  who  have  begun  to  cry, 
It  is  the  poor  captives  in  their  harsh  captivity  who  have  begun  to  cry.2 

Or  when  a  Cossack  leaves  his  home  : 

On  Sunday  in  the  morning, 

It  is  not  the  clocks  that  sound, 

It  is  voices  which  sound  in  the  house  at  the  end  of  the  village. 

The  father  and  the  mother  send  their  son  to  a  foreign  land.3 

The  same  device  is  commonly  used  by  Jugoslav  poets,  especially 
to  introduce  a  poem  by  a  striking  appeal  to  the  imagination.  So 
Marko  Kralevic  and  General  Vuka  begins  with  a  scene  of  revel  in 
the  castle  of  a  Turk  who  has  captured  three  Serb  warriors  : 

Is  it  thunder,  or  is  it  an  earthquake  ? 
No  it  is  not  thunder  nor  an  earthquake  ; 
They  are  firing  cannons  in  the  castle, 
In  the  mighty  castle  of  Varadin.* 

1  Derzhavin,  p.  83.  2  Scherrer,  p.  58. 

3  Idem,  p.  114.  4  Karadzic,  ii,  p.  224. 

270 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

The  noise  of  the  cannons  is  presented  first  through  the  image  of 
thunder  or  earthquake,  then  in  its  true  character.  Again,  in  Milo$ 
Stoicevic  and  Meho  Orugdzijc  a  mother's  lament  is  presented  by 
the  same  indirect  approach  : 

Loud  a  grey-blue  cuckoo-bird  lamented 
On  the  hillock  over  Bijeljina ; 
'Twas  no  grey-blue  cuckoo  that  lamented, 
But  the  mother  of  Orugd&jc'  Meho.1 

Such  passages  perform  the  same  function  as  ordinary  similes,  but 
in  a  more  striking  way.  Our  curiosity  is  first  aroused,  then  satis- 
fied, and  we  receive  a  complex  impression  of  what  is  happening 
through  the  poet's  double  presentation  of  it. 

This  device  is  exploited  with  much  skill  by  Russian  poets  who 
greatly  prefer  it  to  the  ordinary  simile.  A  good  example  can  be 
seen  in  Ryabinin's  account  of  the  murder  of  the  Tsarevich  Dmitri 
by  Boris  Godunov  : 

It  is  no  whirlwind  rolling  along  the  valley, 

It  is  not  feather-grass  bowing  to  the  earth, 

It  is  an  eagle  flying  under  the  clouds ; 

Keenly  he  looks  at  the  Moscow  River 

And  the  palace  of  white  stone, 

And  its  green  garden, 

And  the  golden  palace  of  the  royal  city. 

It  is  not  a  cruel  serpent  rearing  itself  up, 

It  is  a  cowardly  dog  raising  a  steel  knife. 

It  has  fallen  not  into  the  water  nor  on  the  earth, 

It  has  fallen  on  to  the  white  breast  of  the  Tsar's  son, 

None  other  than  the  Tsar's  son  Dmitri.2 

Here  there  are  in  effect  three  comparisons.  First,  the  flight  of  an 
eagle  is  like  a  wind  or  grass  moving :  then,  the  murderous  stroke 
of  Boris  is  like  the  bite  of  a  snake  ;  lastly,  the  fall  of  the  knife  on 
the  young  man's  breast  is  like  something  falling  on  earth  or  water. 
The  negative  comparisons  create  an  impression  which  is  both 
visual  and  emotional ;  they  show  both  what  the  crime  looks  like 
and  what  it  means.  Sometimes  this  art  is  used  for  a  purely  emo- 
tional or  psychological  purpose,  as  when  a  poet  describes  the  fury 
of  Ivan  the  Terrible  against  the  towns  of  Pskov  and  Novgorod  : 

It  is  not  the  blue  sea  which  is  stirring, 

It  is  not  the  wet  pine-wood  which  is  on  fire, 

It  is  the  terrible  Tsar  Ivan  Vasilevich  who  is  aflame, 

Saying  that  he  must  punish  Novgorod  and  Pskov  ;  3 

1   Ibid,  iv,  p.  196.     Trs.  W.  A.  Morison. 
2  Kireevski,  vii,  p.  i.  3  Rybnikov,  i,  p.  115. 

271 


HEROIC  POETRY 

or  the  impression  of  awe  and  fear  which  a  Russian  general  makes 
at  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great's  war  against  Charles  XII  of  Sweden  : 

It  is  not  a  threatening  cloud  which  has  come  up, 

Nor  a  heavy  fall  of  sleet  descending  ; 

From  the  glorious  town  of  Pskov 

The  great  royal  boyar  has  arisen, 

Count  Boris,  the  lord  Petrovich  Sheremetev, 

With  all  his  cavalry  and  dragoons, 

With  all  his  Muscovite  infantry.1 

In  such  cases  the  parallel  is  not  visible  but  emotional.  The  images 
reflect  the  temper  of  the  Tsar  and  the  threatening  appearance  of  the 
general,  and  set  the  tone  for  the  poem  which  follows. 

In  these  cases  an  additional  emphasis  is  often  secured  through 
an  accumulation  of  comparisons.  The  poet  feels  that  one  is  not 
enough  for  his  purpose  and  adds  one  or  two  more  to  make  his 
meaning  quite  clear.  This  is  a  technique  pursued  by  many  users 
of  similes.  It  draws  attention  to  more  than  one  aspect  of  a  complex 
situation  and  shows  how  much  the  poet  sees  in  it.  When  the  Kara- 
Kirghiz  poet  describes  a  sorceress,  he  says  : 

Like  a  bride,  with  covered  face, 
Dzhestumshyk,  the  copper-lipped, 
Hunts  there  for  human  beings, 
As  an  evil  spider  hunts  for  flies.2 

In  appearance  the  sorceress  is  like  a  bride ;  in  character  like  a 
spider.  The  elements  so  accumulated  are  unpretentious  enough 
in  themselves  but  gain  by  being  placed  in  new  combinations. 
Thus,  though  the  poets  of  the  Elder  Edda  seldom  use  similes,  yet, 
when  they  do,  they  like  to  accumulate  them.  The  elements  are 
plainly  traditional  —  a  man  is  like  a  stag  or  a  tree  or  a  jewel  — 
but  variations  are  secured  through  new  conjunctions,  as  for 
instance : 

Helgi  rose      above  heroes  all 
Like  the  lofty  ash      above  lowly  thorns, 
Or  the  noble  stag,      with  dew  besprinkled, 
Bearing  his  head      above  all  beasts. 3 

Sigurth  is  praised  in  much  the  same  way  by  Guthrun  : 

"  So  was  my  Sigurth      o'er  Gjuki's  sons, 
As  the  spear-leek  grown      above  the  grass, 
Or  the  jewel  bright      borne  on  the  band, 
The  precious  stone      that  princes  wear  "  ;4 

1  Kireevski,  viii,  p.  129  ;  Chadwick  R.H.P.  p.  271.  2  Manas,  p.  76. 

3  Helgakvitha  Hundingsbana,  ii,  37.  4  Guthrundrkvitha,  i,  17. 

272 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

or 

So  Sigurth  rose      o'er  Gjuki's  sons 
As  the  leek  grows  green      above  the  grass, 
Or  the  stag  o'er  all      the  beasts  doth  stand, 
Or  as  glow-red  gold      above  silver  grey.1 

Though  the  separate  elements  in  these  similes  are  simple  and  even 
conventional,  something  is  gained  by  their  juxtaposition.  Helgi  or 
Sigurth  is  suggested  in  his  whole  being,  in  his  height  and  strength, 
his  superiority  and  brilliance  and  beauty.  Each  simile  makes  its 
contribution,  but  the  total  result  is  more  than  the  mere  sum  of 
them. 

When  a  poet  wishes  to  produce  a  particularly  striking  effect, 
he  may  pile  up  similes  in  this  way,  taking  care  that  each  adds 
something  new.  So  the  Kara- Kirghiz  poet  conveys  the  speed  and 
ferocity  of  Alaman  Bet  in  action  : 

He  flashed  like  a  whirlwind, 

He  made  the  light  of  noon  like  night, 

He  made  summer  into  winter, 

And  with  a  thick  veil 

He  covered  the  empty  steppe.2 

In  a  similar  manner  the  Kalmuck  poet  lets  himself  go  on  the  great 
hero,  Dzhangar : 

Look  at  him  from  behind, 

He  is  slender  as  a  tall  cypress  ; 

Look  at  him  from  in  front, 

It  is  as  if  he  had  a  hungry  lion's  grip 

Who  leaps  from  the  crest  of  a  hill. 

Look  at  him  from  the  side, 

He  is  like  a  full  moon  on  the  fifteenth  night. 

In  the  muscles  between  his  shoulders 

He  is  almost  like  a  loaded  camel. 

His  lustreless  silver  hair 

Stays  like  a  fallen  full-grown  cypress. 3 

This  portrait  from  every  angle  leaves  little  unsaid.  Nor  is  this 
technique  confined  to  men.  It  is  equally  suited  to  feminine 
charms,  and  a  Kara- Kirghiz  poet  uses  it  very  prettily  when  he 
expands  on  the  charms  of  Ak  Saikal : 

The  snow  falls  to  the  black  earth, 
Look  at  the  snow,  it  is  like  her  flesh  ; 
A  drop  of  blood  falls  on  the  snow, 
Look  at  the  blood,  it  is  like  her  face. 

1  Ibid,  ii,  2.  2  Manas,  p.  240. 

3  Dzhangariada,  p.  97. 

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HEROIC  POETRY 

Her  mouth  is  like  a  foxglove, 
Her  teeth  are  rows  of  pearls, 
Like  feathers  her  eyebrows, 
Black  berries  her  eyes, 
Like  sugar  is  the  maiden.1 

A  similar  technique  and  not  dissimilar  comparisons  are  used  by  a 
Jugoslav  poet  for  the  same  purpose  : 

Fine  of  waist  is  she,  and  tall  of  figure, 
And  her  hair  is  like  a  wreath  of  silk-threads  ; 
Her  two  eyes  are  like  two  precious  jewels, 
And  like  leeches  from  the  sea  her  eyebrows  ; 
In  her  cheeks  a  crimson  rose  is  blooming, 
And  her  teeth  two  strings  of  pearls  resemble, 
And  her  mouth  a  little  box  of  sugar  ; 
When  she  speaks,  'tis  like  a  pigeon  cooing, 
Like  the  sound  of  sprinkled  pearls  her  laughter, 
And  her  walk  is  like  a  peahen's  gliding.2 

Most  of  these  comparisons  are  formulaic  and  traditional,  but  their 
combination  is  new  and  charming.  The  poet  sets  out  an  inventory 
of  the  young  woman's  attractions,  and  she  emerges  from  it  in  all 
her  grace  and  gaiety. 

These  accumulated  similes  belong  to  what  is  on  the  whole  an 
unsophisticated  poetry,  but  they  are  also  used  by  poets  who  are 
more  conscious  of  their  literary  calling  and  know  well  what  they 
are  doing.  In  The  Stealing  of  the  Mare,  when  Ganimeh  comes  to 
ask  Abu  Zeyd  for  help,  she  praises  him  for  his  chivalry  in  a  series 
of  comparisons  : 

"  Thus  have  I  come  to  thee  on  my  soul's  faith,  Salameh, 
Thee  the  champion  proved  of  all  whose  hearts  are  doubting, 
Thee  the  doer  of  right,  the  scourge  of  the  oppressor, 
Thee  the  breeze  in  autumn,  thee  the  winter's  coolness, 
Thee  the  morning's  warmth  after  a  night  of  watching, 
Thee  the  wanderer's  joy,  well  of  the  living  water, 
Thee  to  thy  foeman's  lips  as  colocynth  of  the  desert, 
Thee  the  river  Nile  in  the  full  day  of  his  flooding, 
When  he  hath  mounted  high  and  covereth  the  islands."  3 

With  this  we  may  compare  the  way  in  which  a  list  may  be  used  not 
for  praise  but  for  abuse  and  be  equally  effective  in  its  own  task. 
In  Gilgamish,  when  the  goddess  Ishtar  falls  in  love  with  the  hero 
and  makes  him  an  offer  of  marriage,  which  he  rejects  with  scorn, 
he  is  inspired  to  a  series  of  comparisons  : 

"  Thou  art  a  ruin  which  gives  no  shelter  to  man  from  the  weather, 
Thou  art  a  back  door  which  resists  not  wind  or  storm, 

1  Radlov,  v,  p.  392.  2  Morison,  p.  xxx.  3  Blunt,  ii,  p.  136. 

274 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

Thou  art  a  palace  which  breaks  in  pieces  the  heroes  within  it, 

Thou  art  a  pitfall  whose  covering  gives  way, 

Thou  art  pitch  which  defiles  the  man  who  carries  it, 

Thou  art  a  bottle  which  leaks  on  him  who  carries  it, 

Thou  art  limestone  which  lets  stone  ramparts  fall  and  crumble, 

Thou  art  chalcedony  which  fails  to  guard  in  an  enemy's  land, 

Thou  art  a  sandal  which  causes  its  owner  to  stumble. "  l 

The  devastating  list  shows  up  the  goddess  Ishtar  for  the  untrust- 
worthy being  that  she  is. 

\The  small  simile  inevitably  becomes  bigger  as  the  poets  see  its 
uses  for  varying  the  texture  of  their  poetry.  It  may  be  expanded 
into  several  lines  by  the  addition  of  details  inside  a  single  frame. 
So  though  The  Stealing  of  the  Mare  is  fond  of  similes  in  sequence, 
it  also  knows  the  use  of  a  fuller,  single  simile,  as  when  Abu  Zeyd 
is  surrounded  by  enemies  in  a  fight : 

And  they  pressed  me  left  and  right  as  the  high  banks  of  a  river, 

Even  the  river  Nile  in  the  full  day  of  its  flooding, 

When  the  whirlpools  sweep  with  might  and  overwhelm  the  bridges.2 

Even  poets  who  are  sparing  of  similes  sometimes  do  this  or  come 
near  to  it.  So  Roland,  in  which  the  similes  are  sparse  and  short, 
expands  them  at  least  into  a  single  whole  line  when  Roland  pursues 
the  Saracens  : 

Even  as  a  stag  before  the  hounds  goes  flying, 
Before  Rollanz  the  pagans  scatter,  frightened. ' 

So  too  the  poet  of  Beowulf  evidently  feels  that  the  mysterious 
melting  of  Beowulf's  sword  in  the  lair  of  Grendel's  Dam  demands 
something  more  than  a  short  comparison,  and  spreads  himself 
on  it : 

Then  that  sword  began 
From  the  sweat  of  death      in  icicle  drops, 
The  war-bill,  to  wane  ;      that  was  something  wondrous 
That  it  all  melted,      to  ice  most  likened. 4      J 

So  the  Norse  poet  makes  Guthrun  describe  her  widowhood  : 

Lonely  am  I      as  the  forest  aspen, 

Of  kindred  bare      as  the  fir  of  its  boughs, 

My  joys  are  all  lost      as  the  leaves  of  the  tree 

When  the  scather  of  twigs      from  the  warm  day  turns. 5 

The  art  of  comparison  has  passed  beyond  the  equivalence  of  a 
single  point  and  advanced  to  something  more  complex.  So  the 
Kara-Kirghiz  poet  describes  the  warriors  of  Manas  : 

1   Gilgamish,  vi,  i,  33-41-  2  Blunt,  ii,  p.  184. 

3  Roland,  1874-5.  4  Beowulf,  1605-8.  5  Hamthismdl,  5. 

275 


HEROIC  POETRY 

As  the  grass  of  the  wormwood  on  the  steppe 
Passes  beyond  the  sandy  wastes, 
As  on  the  other  side  the  grass 
Passes  into  the  waving  blue.  .  .  .! 

The  wide  landscape  is  evoked  to  show  the  size  of  the  host.  By  this 
extension  of  the  simple  simile  the  poets  not  only  make  their  com- 
parisons more  vivid  and  more  precise  but  give  a  longer  respite  in 
the  record  of  action. 

In  Homer  the  long  simile  plays  a  large  part.  He  is  the  source  of 
all  the  long  similes  which  are  so  attractive  in  Virgil,  Camoens, 
Ariosto,  Tasso,  and  Milton.  Though  he  frequently  uses  short 
similes,  his  long  similes  are  hardly  less  frequent  and  represent  a 
more  advanced  art.  By  them  he  illustrates  the  central  character 
of  an  event  by  comparing  it  to  some  other  event  of  quite  a  different 
kind.  He  stresses  what  seems  to  him  important  and  does  not 
attempt  the  impossible  task  of  trying  to  find  a  comparison  on  every 
point.  What  he  stresses  is  some  essential  quality  which  two  events 
have  in  common.  When  the  Achaeans  in  battle  are  white  with 
dust,  it  is  like  a  threshing-floor  covered  with  chaff.2  All  that 
concerns  Homer  for  the  moment  is  the  visual  impression  of  white- 
ness. Again,  when  Priam  and  the  old  men  of  Troy  talk  on  the 
city-wall,  and  are  compared  to  cicadas  chirruping  on  a  tree,3  the 
comparison  is  of  sound  and  of  the  effect  which  it  makes.  By  such 
means  Homer  makes  his  actions  vivid  to  the  eye  and  the  ear.  He 
first  speaks  of  them  plainly  and  then  enlarges  the  concept  of  them 
by  some  comparison  which  emphasises  a  special  quality  in  them. 
He  helps  us  to  select  from  a  complex  experience  what  is  really 
essential  and  central. 

Of  course  this  art  inevitably  passes  beyond  the  appeal  of  sight 
or  sound  and  helps  to  stress  the  appeal  of  some  situation  to  the 
imagination  by  drawing  attention  to  its  actual  character.  Take,  for 
instance,  the  occasion  when  the  Achaeans  stand  firm  against  the 
onslaught  of  Hector  and  his  Trojans  : 

Like  to  a  tower  they  held,  firm  fastened,  just  as  a  grey  rock 
Rising  high  in  the  air,  at  the  side  of  the  silvery-grey  sea, 
Waits  and  endures  the  attacks  of  the  winds  that  whistle  against  it 
And  of  the  full-bellied  waves  that  break  into  foam  all  about  it.* 

Both  sight  and  sound  play  some  part  in  the  comparison,  but  there 
is  something  else  more  important.  The  defence  of  the  Achaean 
warriors  has  the  strength  and  majesty  of  a  wall  of  rock,  and  that 

1  Manas,  p.  75.  2  //.  v,  499  ff. 

3  Ibid,  iii,  151  ff.  4  Ibid,  xv,  618-21. 

276 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

is  what  principally  matters.  The  visual  impression  passes  into 
something  else  and  adds  a  new  dimension  to  the  issue  at  stake. 
Again,  when  Priam  comes  to  Achilles  to  ransom  the  body  of  his 
dead  son,  Hector,  Achilles  is  dumbfounded  at  the  old  man's 
courage,  and  Homer  emphasises  this  in  a  simile  : 

As  when  a  man  whom  spite  of  fate  hath  curs'd  in  his  own  land 

For  homicide,  that  he  fleeth  abroad  and  seeketh  asylum 

With  some  lord,  and  they  that  see  him  are  fill'd  with  amazement.1 

At  first  sight  we  might  think  that  the  simile  is  not  very  exact,  that 
Priam  is  less  suitably  compared  to  a  murderer  than  Achilles  would 
be.  But  Homer  has  his  eye  on  a  special  point,  and  his  simile 
stresses  it.  The  amazement  which  Achilles  feels  is  not  merely 
surprise  at  Priam's  courage  but  is  coloured  by  dark  emotions 
related  to  the  world  of  carnage  in  which  he  lives  and  of  which  his 
killing  of  Hector  is  a  signal  example.  In  this  world  passions  of 
hatred  and  revenge  cloud  the  judgment,  and  the  unexpected 
appearance  of  Priam  is  in  its  own  way  as  strange  as  the  arrival  of 
a  homicide  in  quest  of  asylum  with  a  rich  lord.  What  matters  is 
the  identity  of  emotional  and  imaginative  effect,  the  light  which 
the  simile  throws  on  the  event  which  it  illustrates.  The  mixed 
emotions  and  the  sinister  implications  of  bloodshed  are  implicit 
in  the  simile  as  in  the  dramatic  situation. 

In  his  desire  to  create  this  identity  of  character  and  atmosphere 
Homer  sometimes  tends  to  pass  beyond  the  limits  of  exact  com- 
parison so  far  as  sight  is  concerned.  He  begins  a  simile  with  some- 
thing plainly  visual,  and  then  adds  something  else  which  is  not 
visual  and  seems  to  have  no  direct  relation  to  the  original  situation. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  scene  where  the  Trojans  camp  in  the  plain 
and  light  their  camp-fires  : 

As  when  in  heaven  the  stars  around  the  moon  in  its  splendour 
Shine  very  bright,  when  the  air  is  silent  without  any  wind's  breath, 
And  all  the  mountains  are  clear,  and  the  peaks  of  the  lofty  hill- 
ranges, 

And  every  valley  ;  from  high  the  limitless  heaven  is  open, 
And  every  star  can  be  seen  ;  and  at  heart  the  shepherd  is  joyful.2 

The  camp-fires  are  visually  like  the  stars  on  a  windless  night  but 
the  introduction  of  the  shepherd  and  his  gladness  is  a  new  idea. 
It  sums  up  the  calm  and  peacefulness  of  such  an  occasion.  Even  in 
war  there  are  these  moments,  and  Homer  touches  dexterously  and 
lightly  on  them.  Again,  when  Odysseus  enters  the  hall  before 
beginning  to  kill  the  Suitors,  he  debates  with  himself  what  to  do, 

1  Ibid,  xxiv,  480-82.    Trs.  Robert  Bridges.  2  //.  viii,  551-5. 

277 


HEROIC  POETRY 

and  the  movements  of  his  thought  are  compared  to  something 
visible : 

Even  as  over  a  fire  that  rises  up  crackling  and  flaming 

A  man  turns  this  way  and  that  a  paunch  full  of  blood  and  of  suet, 

And  very  greatly  desires  that  it  shall  be  speedily  roasted.1 

The  visible  image  adds  exactness  and  clarity  to  the  movements 
of  Odysseus'  mind,  but  what  really  matters  is  his  eagerness  to  get 
to  work,  and  that  is  what  Homer  conveys.  Odysseus  is  as  im- 
patient as  a  man  cooking  a  haggis,  and  that  is  the  chief  point. 

Homer's  similes  are  vivid  pictures  of  different  corners  of  life. 
Each  lives  on  its  own  and  reveals  some  unsuspected  or  hidden 
quality  in  a  situation.  But  because  they  are  complete,  they  tend 
sometimes  to  pass  beyond  mere  comparison,  even  of  character  and 
atmosphere,  and  to  introduce  something  which  is,  strictly  speaking, 
irrelevant.  The  picture  takes  command,  and  the  poet  so  enjoys  it 
that  he  completes  it  with  some  charming  touch  which  makes  us 
almost  forget  why  the  simile  has  been  introduced.  A  striking 
example  of  this  is  when  Menelaus  is  wounded  and  his  hip  stained 
with  blood  : 

As  when  a  Carian  woman,  or  maybe  Maeonian,  staineth 

Ivory  with  red  dye  as  a  cheek-decoration  for  horses  ; 

Safe  in  a  chamber  it  lies  ;  many  horsemen  are  eager  to  wear  it, 

But  in  a  king's  treasure-chamber  it  lies  to  be  a  decoration 

Worn  by  his  horse  and  to  bring  great  glory  to  whoso  may  drive  it.2 

The  first  point  of  the  comparison  is  of  course  between  the  colour 
of  blood  on  the  skin  and  of  scarlet  stain  on  ivory.  The  implied 
comparison  may  go  further  and  hint  at  the  fascination  which  even 
such  a  wound  may  have.  But  then  the  comparison  really  ceases. 
The  last  two  lines  leave  the  original  situation  behind  and  complete 
the  picture  for  its  own  sake.  Again,  when  Asius  is  killed  by 
Idomeneus  : 

Down  he  fell  with  a  crash  as  an  oak  may  fall  or  a  poplar, 
Or  as  a  lofty  pine,  which  men  who  work  on  the  mountains 
Fell  with  new-sharpened  axes  to  make  a  plank  for  a  great  ship. 3 

The  fall  of  the  warrior  is  well  likened  to  the  felling  of  a  tall  tree, 
but  the  reference  to  the  ship's  timber  is  not  strictly  to  the  point. 
It  helps  to  fill  in  the  picture  and  make  it  more  interesting.  Homer 
does  not  often  expand  his  similes  in  this  way,  but  his  reasons  for 
doing  so  may  be  surmised.  He  wishes  not  only  to  illustrate  an 
occasion  in  his  story  but  to  provide  some  relief  from  what  might 
otherwise  be  too  monotonous.  These  little  glimpses  into  worlds 
1  Od.  xx,  25-7.  2  //.  iv,  141-5.  3  Ibid,  xiii,  389-91. 

278 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

which  have  nothing  to  do  with  war  give  a  momentary  respite  and 
send  us  back  refreshed  to  the  fighting. 

In  his  similes  Homer  uses  formulaic  phrases  as  he  does  else- 
where, and  the  remarkable  thing  is  how  finely  he  uses  them,  how 
little  sense  of  strain  is  felt  at  their  reappearance  in  different 
circumstances.  But  he  does  more  than  this ;  he  repeats  actual 
similes,  either  in  whole  or  in  part,  to  illustrate  quite  different 
situations.  On  this  many  theories  have  been  built,  but  we  cannot 
doubt  that  Homer  did  it  because  the  similes  existed  and  were 
ready  for  use.  It  was  up  to  him  to  see  that  they  were  used  effect- 
ively and  relevantly.  For  instance,  he  twice  makes  a  comparison 
between  a  man  going  to  battle  and  a  horse  going  to  pasture  : 

As  when  a  stallion,  fed  with  barley-meal  in  the  stable, 
Breaks  his  tether  and  runs  off  stamping  over  the  country, 
Being  accustomed  to  bathe  in  the  streams  of  the  broad-flowing 

river, 

Glorying  ;  high  he  raises  his  head,  and  the  mane  on  his  shoulders 
Floats  all  about  him  ;  he  puts  his  trust  in  his  prowess,  and  swiftly 
His  legs  carry  him  off  to  the  haunts  where  the  mares  are  at  pasture.1 

This  is  admirably  to  the  point  for  Paris,  who  goes  to  war  rather  as 
he  goes  to  love.  But  it  is  used  again  for  Hector,2  and  we  might 
feel  that  for  him  it  is  less  appropriate.  Yet  in  the  context  it  is  right 
enough.  Hector  too  goes  to  battle  like  an  eager  stallion.  We  must 
forget  that  the  simile  has  been  used  for  Paris  and  dismiss  its 
associations  with  him.  It  takes  its  colour  from  its  new  setting  and 
works  very  well.  Again,  Ajax  is  pressed  back  by  the  advancing 
Trojans  : 

As  when  a  glittering  lion  retreats  from  a  steading  of  oxen, 

Driven  away  in  much  haste  by  the  dogs  and  the  men  of  the  pasture, 

Who  will  never  allow  him  to  pick  the  best  of  the  oxen, 

All  night  waiting  for  him  ;  and  he,  for  flesh  very  eager, 

Goes  to  his  task  but  achieves  not  a  thing  ;  for  many  the  javelins 

Flung  by  their  fearless  hands  come  to  meet  him  upon  his  arrival, 

And  many  torches  aflame,  which  he  fears,  though  he  be  very  eager.3 

Ajax's  unwilling  retirement  is  well  caught  in  this  simile,  but  Homer 
uses  it  again  to  tell  how  Menelaus  leaves  the  battle  to  look  for 
Antilochus.4  The  occasion  is  less  exciting  and  there  is  hardly  any 
fight  in  it.  But  the  simile  is  appropriate  enough.  Menelaus  does 
not  wish  to  leave  the  battle  and  is  therefore  like  the  lion  which 
retreats  unwillingly.  The  context  colours  the  simile  and  gives  it 
rather  a  different  meaning.  As  commonly  with  formulae,  the 

1  Ibid,  vi,  506-11.  2  Ibid,  xv,  263  ff. 

3  Ibid,  xi,  548-54.  4  Ibid,  xvii,  657  ff. 

279  T 


HEROIC  POETRY 

colour  is  partly  provided  by  the  situation,  and  we  must  look  to 
that,  and  not  to  other  places  where  the  same  form  of  words  has 
been  used. 

Another  traditional  element  in  heroic  poetry  is  concerned  with 
getting  a  story  started.  This  too  is  often  formulaic  and  part  of 
the  technique  which  a  bard  inherits  from  tradition  and  learns  from 
his  masters.  This  is  not  to  say  that  all  heroic  poems  begin  on 
conventional  lines  with  a  stock  theme.  There  are  many  of  them 
which  show  the  poet's  ability  to  start  with  something  striking  of 
his  own  invention.  But  the  majority  start  in  a  familiar  way,  and 
the  reason  for  it  is  that,  just  as  the  audiences  like  formulae  and 
repetitions,  so  too  they  like  stock  openings.  They  feel  imme- 
diately at  home ;  their  uncertain  attention  is  caught  without 
difficulty  by  the  familiarity  of  the  theme,  and  they  listen  to  see 
how  it  is  developed  and  what  new  point  is  given  to  it.  The  result 
is  that  there  are  certain  openings  which  occur  in  more  than  one 
country  or  language  and  show  the  way  in  which  heroic  poets  work, 
wherever  they  may  live.  These  openings  are,  naturally  enough, 
commonest  in  short  lays,  but  they  are  to  be  found  also  in  long 
poems,  and  even  in  very  long  poems,  as  means  to  start  new 
episodes.  Their  use  is  an  interesting  commentary  on  the  develop- 
ment of  heroic  poetry  from  short  lay  to  full-scale  epic.  The  poet 
of  the  epic  knows  the  art  of  the  lay  and  has  probably  been  brought 
up  on  it ;  so  when  he  advances  to  composition  on  a  large  scale,  he 
still  uses  the  devices  which  belong  to  the  lay  and  weaves  them  into 
a  larger  whole.  The  themes  which  open  poems  or  episodes  may 
often  be  quite  simple  and  conventional,  but  it  is  instructive  to  see 
how  they  are  made  to  fit  into  a  narrative  of  action. 

First,  there  is  the  theme  of  the  feast.  In  Russian  poetry  no 
theme  is  commoner.  The  great  man  gives  a  feast,  and  at  it  a 
boast  or  a  wager  is  made  which  has  to  be  justified  by  action.  It 
does  not  matter  whether  the  great  man  is  Vladimir  or  Ivan  the 
Terrible  or  another.  The  procedure  is  usually  the  same  and 
expressed  in  very  similar  words.  It  looks  as  if  such  an  opening 
were  devised  to  cover  the  moments  when  the  bard  begins  his 
performance  and  has  not  yet  caught  the  full  attention  of  his 
audience.  It  is  completely  conventional  and  unadventurous,  but 
good  enough  to  engage  attention  and  set  the  story  going.  The 
feast  is  described,  arid  then  the  story  proper  begins.  Staver  boasts 
that  his  wife  can  deceive  Vladimir,  and  in  due  course  she  does ; 
the  talk  turns  to  the  wealth  of  Churilo  Plenkovich,  and  Vladimir 
rides  out  to  see  for  himself ;  Vladimir  gives  a  feast  and  forgets  to 
ask  Ilya  to  it,  with  humiliating  consequences  for  himself ;  Ivan  the 

280 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

Terrible  boasts  that  there  are  no  traitors  in  his  realm,  and  his  son, 
Ivan,  says  that  the  other  son,  Fedor,  is  one.  The  feast  is  useful 
for  more  than  one  reason.  It  allows  a  number  of  heroes  to  be 
gathered  together  and  to  compete  with  each  other  in  boasts  and 
challenges  ;  it  shows  familiar  characters  at  their  ease,  ready  to  face 
any  new  call  to  action ;  above  all  it  gives  no  indication  of  what  is 
coming  next.  In  so  starting  his  tale  the  bard  keeps  the  audience 
in  the  dark  as  to  what  is  going  to  happen,  and  so  prepares  for  the 
surprise  which  he  intends  to  create. 

The  Jugoslavs  resemble  the  Russians  in  using  the  theme  of  the 
feast,  though  their  practice  is  a  little  different.  It  is  usually  very 
short,  not  more  than  a  line  or  two,  and  it  depicts  not  so  much  a 
feast  at  the  house  of  a  king  or  prince,  though  it  does  this  in  the 
famous  account  of  the  feast  before  Kosovo,  as  of  warriors  drinking 
together  and  depicted  rapidly  in  such  opening  lines  as 

Three  young  Serbian  chieftains  sat  a-drinking, 
or 

Thirty  captains  sat  at  wine  together, 
or 

Marko  sat  at  supper  with  his  mother, 
or 

Musa  the  Albanian  was  drinking 

Wine  in  Istambul,  in  the  white  tavern. 

The  words  differ  slightly  according  to  the  character  or  characters 
to  be  introduced,  but  the  plan  is  the  same.  The  warriors  sit  and 
drink  ;  then  someone  boasts  or  makes  a  wager  or  news  arrives,  and 
stirring  events  are  set  in  action.  Philip  the  Magyar  boasts  that  he 
will  put  Marko's  head  on  a  tower  of  Karlovatz ;  Marko  carries 
out  his  plan  of  feigning  sick  in  order  to  trap  a  Turkish  adversary  ; 
letters  come  to  him,  and  he  goes  to  the  Sultan  ;  Musa  boasts  that 
he  will  become  a  brigand  and  does  so.  The  Jugoslav  openings 
resemble  the  Russian  in  the  great  freedom  which  they  leave  to  the 
poet  to  develop  what  sequel  he  will.  They  set  a  simple  scene, 
which  makes  almost  anything  possible. 

A  feast  may  also  provide  an  opening  for  a  longer  poem,  and  in 
that  case  it  may  be  set  out  at  some  length  as  a  useful  way  of  intro- 
ducing a  hero  and  his  companions  and  showing  how  they  live. 
That  is  what  Kalmuck  poets  do  more  than  once  for  Dzhangar. 
In  Dzhangar's  War  with  the  Black  Prince  the  poet  begins  with  a 
long  account  of  the  hero,  his  dwelling,  his  horse,  weapons,  wife, 
and  companions,  and  all  this  leads  up  to  a  feast  at  which  the  hero's 
praises  are  sung  by  a  minstrel.  This  is  followed  immediately  by  a 
similar  feast  at  the  court  of  his  enemy,  the  Black  Prince,  and  only 

281 


HEROIC  POETRY 

after  this  does  the  main  action  begin.1  A  somewhat  similar  tech- 
nique is  used  in  another  poem  which  tells  of  Dzhangar's  victory 
over  the  seven  warriors  of  Khan  Zambal,  though  there  the  poet 
dispenses  with  the  enemy's  feast.2  The  Kalmuck  poets  use  the 
theme  of  the  feast  because  it  enables  them  to  present  a  whole 
company  of  heroes  in  their  splendour,  and  then  to  achieve  a  fine 
contrast  between  their  dignified  calm  when  they  are  at  rest  and 
their  irrepressible  energy  when  they  are  in  action.  Into  this 
setting  is  woven  the  theme  of  the  boast  which  has  to  be  justified 
by  action,  as  when  the  Black  Knight  says  : 

"  Is  there  in  all  the  world  under  the  sun, 

Under  the  sun  or  under  the  moon, 

Such  a  man  as  could  be  matched  with  my  strength  ?  " 

The  boast,  once  made,  has  to  be  justified,  and  the  Black  Knight  is 
defeated  by  Dzhangar. 

A  second  popular  theme  is  that  of  knights  who  ride  abroad  and 
encounter  adventures.  This  is  extremely  common  in  Slavonic 
poetry  whether  in  Russia  or  Jugoslavia  or  the  Ukraine.  The 
Russians  start  with  their  usual  simplicity,  describing  how  a  rider 
crosses  the  open  plain  and  then  meets  someone,  and  adventures 
follow.  Ilya  of  Murom  encounters  the  giant  Svyatogor  or  Nightin- 
gale the  Robber  ;  Alyosha  and  a  companion  find  an  inscription  on 
a  stone  which  takes  them  to  Kiev  ;  Svyatogor  rides  out  and  comes 
to  his  death.  The  Jugoslavs  have  a  similar  technique,  though  they 
maintain  their  habitual  brevity,  in  such  phrases  as 

Two  sworn  brothers  rode  abroad  together, 
or 

Marko,  king's  son,  rode  out  in  the  morning. 

Then  follow  the  adventures.  Marko  goes  to  Tsarigrad  and  be- 
friends a  powerful  Turk,  or  finds  that  the  Turks  have  instituted 
a  marriage-tax  in  Kosovo  and  abolishes  it.  So  the  Ukrainian 
Cossack  Holota  begins  in  a  similar  way  : 

Across  the  fields  of  Kilia, 

On  the  great  highway  of  the  Hordes, 

Rides  the  cossack  Holota, 

Who  fears  not  fire  nor  steel  nor  the  three  marches. 3 

He  soon  picks  up  a  Tatar  and  engages  him  in  battle.  This  is  a 
good  Slavonic  technique  and  is  similar  in  essential  respects  to  the 
theme  of  a  feast.  A  warrior  riding  over  the  plain  has  the  world 
before  him,  and  anything  may  be  expected  to  happen. 

1  Dzhangar iada,  p.  108  ff.  2  Ibid.  p.  153  ff. 

3  Scherrer,  p.  122. 

282 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

The  theme  of  the  rider  can  also  introduce  an  episode  in  a 
longer  poem,  and  still  keep  its  typical  character.  So,  when  in  a 
Kalmuck  poem  the  hero  Khongor  rides  out  to  find  an  enemy,  he 
sees  something  in  the  distance  : 

On  his  fiery  horse  he  leaped 

On  the  southern  peak  of  a  hill 

And  saw  that  from  the  setting  sun 

Arose  a  thin  red  dust. 

Speak  of  a  whirlwind  —  this  is  no  whirlwind. 

Speak  of  a  snow  hurricane  —  this  is  no  hurricane. 

It  must  be  dust  from  a  brave  war-horse, 

It  draws  near  to  the  warrior  Ulan- Khongor, 

On  the  slope  of  a  high  white  hill 

A  warrior  draws  near,  armed  with  a  long  spear.  .  .  .l 

Khongor  addresses  the  stranger,  and  each  declares  who  he  is,  with 
the  result  that  they  know  that  they  are  enemies  and  serve  masters 
who  are  at  war.  Then  Khongor  comes  to  the  final  words  : 

"  Before  you  get  acquainted  with  me, 
Do  you  not  wish  to  taste  my  sword, 
Such  as  there  is  not  in  all  the  world  ?  " 

The  fight  begins  and  is  conducted  in  a  truly  heroic  manner  : 

They  mingled  their  cold,  black  sabres, 

Each  smote  the  other  on  the  shoulder-blade, 

Stoutly  on  their  protective  battle-armour. 

Their  living  black  blood  lashed  their  noses  and  mouths.2 

In  the  result  Khongor  wins.  The  episode  is  part  of  the  whole 
poem  but  complete  and  satisfying  in  itself,  as  if  the  bard  were 
using  the  old  device  of  starting  a  short  lay  with  the  theme  of  a 
warrior  riding  out  into  the  country. 

A  third  popular  theme  for  starting  a  poem  is  the  flight  of  birds. 
Birds,  of  course,  are  creatures  of  augury,  and  their  flight  may 
foretell  the  future.  So  a  tale  may  well  begin  with  them  because 
they  suggest  that  something  important  is  going  to  happen.  When 
Helgi  Hundingsbane  is  born,  ravens  watch  from  a  tree  and 
prophesy  his  future.  In  the  Hrafnsmal  they  tell  a  Valkyrie  of  the 
doings  of  Harold  Fairhaired.  But  more  interesting  perhaps  is  the 
account,  most  likely  based  on  a  poem,  which  Procopius  gives  of 
events  in  the  year  shortly  before  war  broke  out  between  the  Warni 
and  the  Angli.3  When  Hermegisclus,  king  of  the  Warni,  was  out 
riding  with  his  chieftains,  he  saw  a  bird  sitting  on  a  tree  who 
croaked  loudly.  The  king,  either  because  he  understood  what  the 

1   Dzhangariada,  p.  218.  z  Ibid.  p.  2ig. 

3   Bell.  Goth,  iv,  20. 

283 


HEROIC  POETRY 

bird  said  or  had  other  intimations,  claimed  that  it  had  prophesied 
his  death  forty  days  later.  He  then  made  his  last  dispensations  and 
died  on  the  fortieth  day.  This  is  the  authentic  pattern  of  prophecies 
uttered  by  birds.  The  hero  suddenly  has  the  gift  for  under- 
standing what  they  say,  and,  for  good  or  ill,  what  they  foretell 
comes  to  pass.  So  too,  after  Sigurth  has  killed  Fafnir  and  drunk 
of  his  blood,  he  hears  the  nuthatches  singing  and  understands  their 
song,  which  warns  him  against  Regin,  whom  he  then  kills,  and 
tells  him  about  Brynhild,  how  she  is  asleep  on  a  mountain  with 
a  wall  of  flame  around  her.1  The  nuthatches  start  Sigurth  on  a 
new  adventure,  which  is  to  be  the  cause  of  his  greatest  glory  and 
his  death.  The  Elder  Edda  is  on  the  whole  not  fond  of  super- 
natural elements  of  this  kind,  but  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  the 
theme  of  birds  was  once  common  in  Germanic  poetry  and  has 
survived  in  these  cases. 

The  theme  of  birds  is  extremely  common  in  Jugoslav  poems, 
in  which  they  either  forecast  or  give  warning  about  coming  events. 
The  simplest  way  of  treating  them  is  to  make  them  messengers, 
whose  appearance  and  behaviour  tell  that  something  has  happened, 
as  in  77/6?  Battle  of  Misar  : 

Through  the  air  came  flying  two  black  ravens, 
From  the  far  extending  plain  of  Mi§ar 
And  from  Sabac,  from  the  white  walled  city  ; 
Bloody  were  their  beaks  unto  the  eyeballs 
And  their  legs  unto  the  knees  were  bloody.2 

The  wife  of  a  Turkish  general  sees  them  and  asks  if  they  have 
news  of  her  husband  who  has  gathered  a  great  army  to  subdue  the 
Serbs,  and  the  birds  reply  that  his  army  has  been  defeated.  She 
continues  to  ask  them  questions  until  she  has  heard  the  whole 
story,  with  a  technique  that  recalls  The  Maiden  of  Kosovo,  where  a 
battle  and  its  details  are  reported  by  a  series  of  answers  to  ques- 
tions, though  by  human  agents.  In  The  Battle  of  Misar  the  birds 
give  a  more  eerie  and  menacing  atmosphere  to  the  story.  Their 
role  suggests  that  the  defeat  of  the  Turkish  army  is  a  great  natural 
catastrophe  in  which  even  physical  nature  is  concerned.  The 
Taking  of  Belgrade  opens  in  a  similar  way  but  develops  differently. 
At  the  start  the  birds  arrive  : 

Through  the  air  came  flying  two  bald  ravens, 
Flew  across  the  whole  of  level  Srijem, 
Tired  and  hungry  fell,  and  curses  uttered  : 
"  Land  of  Srijem,  may  thy  green  be  withered 
And  thy  townships  all  be  drowned  in  sorrow  ! 

1   Fafnismal,  32  ff.  2   Karadzic,  iv,  p.  177  ;    Morison,  p.  74. 

284 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

Is  there  in  all  Srijem  not  one  hero 
Blood  to  spill,  engaged  in  mortal  combat  ? 
From  the  last  three  days  have  we  two  ravens 
Over  all  the  mountain-chains  been  flying, 
Over  all  the  forests,  fields,  and  meadows  ; 
Nowhere  on  the  soil  could  we  discover 
Meat  of  horses,  or  the  flesh  of  heroes  ; 
What  is  this  ?     Misfortune  fall  upon  thec  !  "  l 

This  is  a  more  sinister  and  more  imaginative  idea  than  making  the 
birds  mere  messengers.  They  look  for  dead  bodies  and  fail  to 
find  them.  A  shepherd-boy  curses  them  for  wanting  war,  and  they 
fly  off  to  the  wife  of  a  Turkish  chieftain,  who  drives  them  away 
with  stones,  and  then  to  her  horror  sees  a  large  army  pitched 
before  her  town.  Then  the  story  develops  its  full  strength  and  tells 
of  the  taking  of  Belgrade.  The  technique  is  more  advanced  than 
in  The  Battle  of  Misar,  and  a  comparison  between  the  two  poems 
shows  how  differently  the  stock  opening  can  be  used. 

This  theme  of  birds  is  used  abundantly  by  modern  Greek 
poets  with  some  ingenious  variations.  The  bird,  as  we  might 
expect,  is  sometimes  no  more  than  a  bringer  of  news.  So  a  poem 
on  events  of  1770,  Nikostaras,  begins  rather  as  a  Jugoslav  poem 
might : 

From  Verrhia  a  little  bird  has  started  on  its  journey, 
From  rock  to  rock  it  makes  its  way,  from  refuge  unto  refuge, 
The  klephts  interrogate  the  birds,  to  it  the  klephts  put  questions  : 
"  Whence  comest  thou,  O  little  bird  ?     O  little  bird,  whence  com'st 
thou  ? " 2 

The  bird  replies  that  it  goes  from  Verrhia  to  Agrapha  to  bring  a 
message  to  his  friends  from  a  leader  who  has  been  fighting  for 
three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  snow.  Nikostaras  hears  the 
message  and  calls  his  men  to  arm  and  go  with  him  to  cut  the 
crossing  over  the  river  and  join  the  forces  of  Lambrakis.  More 
curious  is  the  opening  of  the  poem  which  tells  of  the  capture  of 
Trebizond  in  1461  : 

A  bird  from  Trebizond,  a  bird  comes  flying  from  the  city ; 

It  settles  not  upon  the  vines,  nor  settles  in  the  gardens. 

But  into  Hili  fortress  goes  and  there  it  ends  its  journey. 

One  of  its  wings  it  flutters  then,  and  it  is  soaked  in  blood-stains, 

The  other  wing  it  flutters  too,  which  bears  a  written  message.3 

The  message  tells  grave  news  of  conquest  by  the  Turks,  and  the 
poem  comes  quickly  to  its  close  with  a  note  of  mourning.  Greek 
poetry  provides  another  variant  on  the  stock  opening  when  the 

1   Morison,  p.  104  fF.  z  Politis,  p.  93.  '  Idem,  p.  77. 

285 


HEROIC  POETRY 

birds  are  not  augurs  or  messengers  but  representatives  of  public 
opinion  or  some  sort  of  spiritual  agency  which  urges  a  man  to 
action  : 

Three  little  birds  were  wandering  in  the  klephts'  hiding  places, 
They  sought  to  find  Dimotsios,  that  he  might  be  a  captain.1 

Dimotsios  refuses  because  he  is  too  old  and  has  sons  who  can  act 
for  him.  But  the  birds  insist : 

"  'Tis  you  alone  we  wish  to  have,  'tis  you  we  love  and  cherish/' 

Dimotsios  promises  to  do  something.  Then  a  pasha  passes  with 
some  prisoners,  and  Dimotsios  cries  out  to  him  to  free  them.  The 
traditional  bird  has  developed  a  new  character  and  become  almost 
an  indication  of  powers  at  work  in  the  old  captain. 

A  fourth  way  of  opening  a  poem  is  to  bring  two  characters 
together  and  from  this  to  evolve  a  scene  of  action.  A  special  form 
of  this  occurs  in  battle-scenes.  Two  warriors  are  somehow 
separated  from  the  general  throng  and  confront  one  another. 
They  hold  a  parley,  asking  each  other  about  their  names  and 
families,  and  after  this  they  fight.  This  theme  resembles  that  of  a 
rider  going  out  to  seek  an  enemy,  but  differs  in  its  setting.  The 
background  of  the  battlefield  is  essential  to  it,  and  gives  it  a  peculiar 
distinction.  A  noble  example  of  this  theme  can  be  seen  in  a  short 
poem,  the  Old  German  Hildebrand.  It  starts  without  explanation 
with  two  warriors  meeting  on  the  battlefield  : 

I  have  heard  it  told 

That  Hildebrand  and  Hadubrand      between  the  hosts 
Challenged  each  other      to  single  combat. 
Father  and  son      set  their  panoply  right, 
Made  their  armour  ready,      girt  their  swords  on  corslets, 
Did  the  heroes  then      when  they  rode  to  the  fray. 

Yet  even  with  this  simple  start  the  strange  situation  is  soon 
apparent.  The  two  men,  though  neither  yet  knows  it,  are  father 
and  son,  and  the  development  is  made  with  a  menacing  sense  of 
doom.  They  engage  in  a  parley,  and  it  is  clear  to  Hildebrand  that 
this  is  his  son,  though  the  son  does  not  believe  it  and  insists  on 
fighting.  What  might  be  only  a  useful  start  is  woven  into  the 
essential  structure  of  the  story. 

In  longer  poems  which  are  extensively  concerned  with  war 
this  scheme  is  used  to  isolate  individual  combats  and  give  them  a 
certain  completeness.  Homer  certainly  knew  of  it  and  uses  it  for 
some  hand-to-hand  combats  in  the  Iliad.  When  Achilles  and 

1  Politis,  p.  89. 
286 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

Aeneas  meet  before  Troy,  the  scheme  is  used  with  a  nice  sense  of 
its  quality.  Homer,  like  the  poet  of  Hildebrand,  goes  straight  to 
the  point  and  dispenses  with  preliminaries  : 

Two  men  of  valour  surpassing 

Went  to  the  space  between  the  two  hosts,  both  eager  for  battle, 
Aeneas,  son  of  Anchises,  and  godlike  Achilles.1 

Since  they  know  each  other,  there  is  no  need  for  explanations,  and 
they  begin  to  fight.  But  the  old  scheme  has  its  claims,  and  Homer 
soon  presents  an  interesting  variation  on  it.  Achilles  interrupts  the 
fighting  to  tell  Aeneas  to  retreat,  and  then  Aeneas  replies  with  a 
full  history  of  his  descent,  though  he  begins  by  saying  that  it  is 
familiar  to  both  of  them.2  Aeneas  does  this  because  he  has  to 
assert  his  claim  to  be  as  good  a  man  as  Achilles,  since  after  all  both 
are  sons  of  a  mortal  father  and  an  immortal  mother.  Then  the 
gods  intervene  and  break  off  the  fight,  but  not  before  we  have  seen 
that  the  two  men  are  well  matched  and  that  Aeneas  can  stand  up 
to  Achilles  as  hardly  anyone  else  can. 

A  second  ingenious  variation  which  Homer  makes  of  this  theme 
comes  in  the  middle  of  another  general  battle.  While  Achaeans 
and  Trojans  engage  in  battle,  two  warriors  meet,  and  their  meeting 
is  described  in  the  traditional  way  : 

Glaucus,  Hippolochus'  son,  and  Tydeus'  son,  Diomedes, 
Came  together  between  the  two  hosts,  both  eager  for  battle. 3 

Diomedes,  who  has  not  seen  Glaucus  before,  asks  him  who  he  is, 
wonders  if  he  is  a  god,  and  says  that,  if  he  is,  he  will  not  fight  him, 
since  it  will  bring  him  a  terrible  doom.  He  speaks  gravely  and 
courteously,  and  Glaucus  answers  him  in  the  same  spirit.  After 
saying  that  there  is  really  no  reason  to  ask  a  man  who  he  is,  since 
the  generations  of  men  are  like  those  of  leaves,  he  tells  his  ancestry 
and  with  it  the  story  of  his  grandfather,  Bellerophon.  This  shows 
Diomedes  that  their  families  have  old  ties,  and  for  this  reason  he 
refuses  to  fight,  and  insists  instead  that  they  shall  exchange  armour. 
On  this  the  episode  ends.  It  is  a  model  of  its  kind.  The  art  of  the 
short  lay  is  used  with  much  skill  inside  a  large  frame,  and  much  of 
the  success  depends  on  the  way  in  which  Homer  uses  an  old  device 
to  take  him  straight  to  the  point  at  the  start. 

A  fifth  type  of  opening  consists  of  persons  arriving  with  news 
or  the  like,  with  the  result  that  some  important  action  has  to  be 
taken.  This  device  enables  the  poet  to  start  an  action  at  its  proper 
beginning,  to  move  from  a  scene  of  peace  to  scenes  of  violence,  and 

1  //.  xx,  158-60.  z  Ibid.  203  ff.  3  Ibid,  vi,  119-20. 

287 


HEROIC  POETRY 

to  depict  various  persons  in  characteristic  roles.  The  simplest 
form  is  when  a  messenger  arrives  who  is  no  more  than  a  bringer 
of  news  and  has  no  importance  beyond  that.  So  in  the  Russian 
The  Youth  of  Churilo  Plenkovich  the  bard  combines  this  theme 
with  that  of  a  feast.  As  Prince  Vladimir  holds  a  feast,  he  sees  a 
crowd  of  people  coming,  beating  the  ground  with  their  heads. 
They  make  complaint  to  him  : 

"  Dear  Sun  of  ours,  Prince  Vladimir  ! 

Give  us,  Master,  a  just  judgment, 

Against  Churilo  Plenkovich. 

To-day,  when  we  were  at  the  river  Soroga, 

Strangers  appeared  ; 

They  cast  fishing-nets  — 

The  strands  were  of  seven  silks, 

The  nets  had  floats  of  silver, 

And  gilded  sinkers. 

They  caught  dace, 

But  for  us,  dear  master,  there  is  no  catch, 

And  for  thee,  Sire,  there  is  not  a  fresh  morsel. 

And  we  have  no  guerdon  from  thee  ; 

They  all  call  themselves,  announce  themselves  to  be 

Churiio's  company."  l 

This  deputation  is  immediately  followed  by  another,  which 
complains  that  Churilo  shoots  all  the  birds  in  the  countryside ; 
then  comes  a  third  with  a  like  complaint  about  the  wild  animals. 
The  result  is  that  Vladimir  sets  out  to  see  Churilo  for  himself,  and 
from  that  much  follows.  Though  the  people  who  bring  news  are 
anonymous,  and  interesting  mainly  as  victims  of  Churiio's  rapacity, 
the  device  is  effective  since  it  moves  at  once  to  the  dramatic  issue 
and  shows  how  Vladimir  behaves  when  faced  by  an  urgent  problem. 
The  device  is  more  dramatic  and  more  intimate  when  the  news 
is  brought  by  a  single  person  who  is  closely  involved  in  what 
happens,  since  this  provides  an  opportunity  for  hearing  at  first 
hand  a  story  of  suffering  or  injustice  and  makes  us  curious  about 
the  result.  This  is  the  case  in  the  Jugoslav  Marko  Kraljevic  and 
the  Twelve  Moors,  which  begins  with  Marko  taking  his  ease  in 
comfort : 

Marko,  King's  son,  set  up  his  pavilion, 
In  the  harsh  land  of  the  Moorish  people, 
Sate  him  down  to  drink  in  his  pavilion, 
But  before  his  glass  of  wine  was  finished, 
Came  a  slave-girl  running  to  him  quickly, 
Went  into  the  tent  of  King's  son  Marko. 

1   Rybnikov,  ii,  p.  524  ;   Chadwick,  R.H.P.  p.  92. 

288 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

The  girl  tells  that  she  is  maltreated  by  twelve  Moors,  who  scourge 
her  and  make  her  kiss  them.  Marko  welcomes  her  kindly,  covers 
her  with  his  mantle,  and  gives  her  a  glass  of  wine  : 

"  There  ",  quoth  he,  "  now  drink  thy  fill,  O  damsel, 
From  this  day  the  sun  hath  risen  on  thce, 
Seeing  thou  art  come  to  my  pavilion."  l 

Marko  then  takes  on  the  Moors  and  kills  them.  The  girl  he  hands 
over  to  his  mother  for  care,  and  later  sees  that  she  finds  a  good 
husband.  Though  the  poem  is  too  short  for  the  girl  to  have  any 
definite  personality,  she  has  at  least  a  situation  and  the  interest 
which  comes  from  it,  and  the  device  of  making  her  bring  news  of 
her  own  plight  helps  to  knit  the  poem  together. 

This  device  is  put  to  a  highly  dramatic  use  in  the  Norse  legend 
of  the  sons  of  Heithrekr.  The  legitimate  son,  Angantyr,  is  king 
of  the  Goths,  while  the  illegitimate  son,  Hlothr,  has  been  brought 
up  among  the  Huns  and  has  nothing.  After  a  short  statement  of 
the  general  situation,  the  poet  of  The  Battle  of  the  (loths  and  tJie 
Huns  2  plunges  into  the  story  by  making  Hlothr  himself  come 
to  Angantyr  : 

Hlothr  rode  from  the  east,      Heithrekr's  heir, 

Till  he  came  to  the  garth,      where  the  Goths  dwell, 

To  Arheimar,      to  ask  for  his  heritage. 

Here  Angantyr  held      Heithrekr's  funeral  feast. 

Hlothr  enters  the  hall  and  is  welcomed  by  Angantyr,  who  asks 
him  to  join  in  the  feast.  Hlothr  refuses  and  demands  half  of 
Angantyr's  possessions.  Angantyr  offers  a  handsome  compromise, 
but  says  that  he  will  rather  fight  than  concede  all  that  Hlothr 
demands.  Hlothr  goes  back  to  the  Huns,  gets  them  to  declare 
war,  and  in  due  course  is  killed  in  battle.  This  is  a  tragic  tale  in 
the  true  heroic  vein,  and  its  main  action  turns  on  the  conflict 
between  the  two  brothers.  It  is  therefore  suitable  that  at  the  start 
they  should  be  brought  together  and  their  different  characters 
revealed.  While  Hlothr  is  aggressive  and  vain,  as  suits  the 
bastard,  Angantyr  is  generous  and  proud.  He  is  ready  to  treat 
Hlothr  well,  but  honour  forbids  that  he  should  yield  all  that  is 
demanded  of  him.  The  opening  lines  prepare  the  way  for  the 
grim  story  that  follows. 

This  technique  may  be  used  in  a  longer  poem  to  start  a  chain 
of  dramatic  events.  Such  is  the  case  with  the  Norse  Atlakvitha. 
Atli,  king  of  the  Huns,  plots  the  death  of  Gunnar  and  his  com- 
panions in  order  to  gain  their  wealth.  To  secure  his  end,  he 

1  Karadzic,  ii,  p.  314.  2  Kershaw,  p.  142  fT. 

289 


HEROIC  POETRY 

decides  to  invite  them  to  his  court,  and  sends  a  messenger  asking 
them  to  come.  The  poem  begins  with  the  arrival  of  the  messenger  : 

Atli  sent      of  old  to  Gunnar 

A  keen-witted  rider,      Knefroth  did  men  call  him  ; 

To  Gjuki's  home  came  he      and  to  Gunnar's  dwelling, 

With  benches  round  the  hearth      and  to  the  beer,  so  sweet.1 

Knefroth  brings  not  news  but  an  invitation,  and  he  sets  it  out  with 
cunning  eloquence  : 

"  Now  Atli  has  sent  me      his  errand  to  ride, 

On  my  bit-champing  steed      through  Myrkwood  the  secret, 

To  bid  you,  Gunnar,      to  his  benches  to  come, 

With  helms  round  the  hearth,      and  Atli's  home  seek. 

Shields  shall  ye  choose  there,      and  shafts  made  of  ash-wood, 
Gold-adorned  helmets,      and  slaves  out  of  Hunland, 
Silver-gilt  saddle-cloths,      shirts  of  bright  scarlet, 
With  lances  and  spears  too,      and  bit-champing  steeds. 

The  field  shall  be  given  you      of  wide  Gnitaheith, 
With  loud-ringing  lances,       and  stems  gold-o'erlaid, 
Treasures  full  huge,      and  the  home  of  Danp, 
And  the  mighty  forest      that  Myrkwood  is  called."  2 

Since  the  poet  composes  on  a  relatively  full  scale,  he  is  able  to  make 
Knefroth  tell  his  tale  in  this  detailed  manner  and  thereby  to  show 
how  treacherous  Atli  and  his  agent  are.  He  then  develops  his 
story  with  a  dramatic  sense  of  its  possibilities.  At  first  Gunnar 
sees  no  reason  to  accept  the  invitation  ;  he  has  abundant  riches 
and  does  not  need  what  Atli  offers  him.  But  he  feels  that  his 
honour  is  somehow  at  stake  and  that  he  must  go.  Then  the  long 
cruel  series  of  events  follows.  Since  the  main  interest  now  lies 
with  Gunnar  and  Atli,  no  more  is  said  of  Knefroth  who  has  played 
his  part  and  disappears.  But  the  theme  of  the  invitation  is  used 
with  great  ability.  It  shows  the  mixed  feelings  with  which  Gunnar 
receives  it  and  the  heroic  spirit  in  which  he  decides  to  take  the 
risk. 

The  arrival  of  a  visitor  with  important  news  opens  at  least  one 
long  heroic  poem.  The  Odyssey  starts  with  the  visit  of  Athene  to 
Ithaca,  where,  in  the  long  absence  of  his  father,  Telemachus  is 
sorely  troubled  by  the  Suitors  who  devour  his  substance.  She 
comes  in  the  form  of  Mentes,  prince  of  the  Taphians,  and  is  first 
seen  by  Telemachus,  who  says  courteously  : 

"  Welcome,  guest,  to  our  hall,  and  when  you  have  finished  your  supper, 
Then  do,  I  pray  you  to  tell  anything  we  may  do  in  your  service.'*  3 

1  Atlakvitha,  i.  2  Ibid.  3-5.  3  Od.  i,  123-4. 

290 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

This  is  the  correct  way  to  greet  a  stranger,  and  what  follows  is 
equally  correct.  After  the  necessary  preliminaries,  Athene  asks 
about  the  Suitors,  and  Telemachus  tells  her  of  his  plight.  Then 
she  breaks  her  news  : 

"  Know  this  for  sure  that  he  is  not  dead,  the  godlike  Odysseus. 
Nay,  but  he  still  is  alive,  tho'  the  broad  sea-water  withholds  him 
Far  on  a  sea-girt  isle,  and  cruel  people  restrain  him, 
Savages  hold  him  back,  tho'  he  longs  very  greatly  to  leave  them."  r 

This  is  important  news,  but  Telemachus  is  slow  to  believe  it. 
Athene  persists  in  her  story  and  tells  him  that  he  must  go  to  Pylos 
and  Sparta  to  get  news  of  his  father.  Any  hesitation  which  he  still 
feels  is  dispersed  when  Athene  changes  into  a  sea-bird  and  flies 
away.  He  then  knows  that  she  is  a  goddess  and  accepts  her  message 
and  her  orders.  So  the  action  of  the  Odyssey  is  set  in  motion. 
Athene's  visit  to  Ithaca  breaks  a  situation  which  has  lasted  for 
years.  The  Suitors  have  cowed  Penelope  and  her  son  into  inac- 
tion, and  divine  intervention  is  needed  to  break  it,  but  Homer  uses 
for  this  the  old  theme  of  a  visitor  arriving  with  important  news. 

Lastly,  dreams  play  a  large  part  in  starting  heroic  poems.  They 
have  several  advantages.  They  are  interesting  in  themselves  and 
present  incidents  unlike  those  of  ordinary  life  ;  they  create  a  sense 
of  destiny  or  of  issues  which  have  to  be  faced  ;  they  often  come  at 
important  moments  and  decide  the  course  which  the  action  takes. 
There  is  of  course  something  fatalistic  in  the  idea  that  dreams 
foretell  the  future  and  that  it  cannot  be  avoided,  but  such  fatalism 
is  common  enough  among  most  peoples  and  is  easily  combined 
with  a  belief  that  a  man  normally  shapes  his  own  destiny.  So  far 
as  the  story  is  concerned,  the  dream  helps  to  set  the  central  theme 
in  a  prominent  place  and  to  prepare  the  way  to  the  crisis  and  make 
it  more  impressive  when  it  comes.  Dreams  need  not  necessarily 
be  of  disaster,  though  they  often  are,  since  their  unearthly  char- 
acter is  well  suited  to  the  blows  of  fate  or  circumstance.  The 
forecast  of  coming  events  invokes  both  doom  and  mystery.  The 
ways  of  the  gods  are  strange,  and  it  is  not  for  man  to  understand 
them  fully,  but,  if  he  is  wise,  he  will  take  the  hints  given  to  him, 
especially  when  they  come  in  sleep,  when  his  ordinary  powers  are 
relaxed  and  he  is  free  to  receive  messages  from  another  world. 

The  simplest  kind  of  dream  is  that  which  gives  a  more  or  less 
literal  forecast  of  coming  events.  So  in  the  Jugoslav  Taking  of 
(izice  a  Turkish  woman,  the  wife  of  a  great  soldier,  dreams  as  she 
lies  on  her  soft  cushions  : 

1  Ibid.  196-9. 
291 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Strange  her  dream,  and  on  a  strange  day  dreamed  she, 

On  the  Friday,  on  the  Turkish  Sunday ; 

Dreamed  a  dream,  and  in  her  dream  she  witnessed 

How  the  radiant  sky  was  clothed  in  darkness 

Suddenly  o'er  U2ice  in  Serbia, 

Then  from  end  to  end  was  rent  asunder ; 

All  the  stars  careered  to  the  horizon 

And  on  tl2ice  the  moon  fell  blood-stained  ; 

From  the  east  the  lightning  sent  its  flashes, 

And  they  slew  the  Turks  within  the  city.1 

When  the  husband  explains  that  this  means  a  slaughter  of  Turks 
by  Serbs,  he  does  not  do  anything  very  clever,  since  the  dream 
itself  has  shown  Turks  being  slain  at  tJzice,  and  that  gives  a  clear 
enough  clue.  Immediately  after  the  interpretation,  the  dream 
begins  to  be  fulfilled  by  the  arrival  of  a  Serb  army  outside  tJzice. 
The  dream  has  by  then  done  its  work,  and  is  no  more  mentioned. 
Its  purpose  is  to  create  an  atmosphere  of  impending  doom,  to 
set  the  tone  for  the  story  which  follows.  The  capture  of  tJzice 
is  presented  as  a  foreordained,  inevitable  event  against  which  any 
action  is  useless. 

With  this  relatively  intelligible  dream  we  may  compare  another 
which  is  more  mysterious.  In  the  Russian  Prince  Roman  the  main 
theme  is  a  dream  and  its  accomplishment.  The  situation  is  set  out 
at  the  start : 

Once  upon  a  time  lived  Prince  Roman  Mitrievich, 

He  slept  with  his  wife,  and  she  dreamed  in  the  night 

That  her  ring  fell  from  her  right  hand, 

From  the  ring-finger  of  her  right  hand,  the  middle  finger, 

And  was  shattered  into  tiny  fragments. 

The  prince  is  troubled  by  the  dream  and  unable  to  interpret  it ; 
so  he  suggests  that  it  be  published  abroad  that  others  may  find 
what  it  means.  But  the  princess  rejects  the  suggestion,  because 
she  is  ready  with  her  own  interpretation  : 

"  I  myself  will  judge  my  dream, 

I  myself  will  interpret  my  dream  : 

There  will  speed  towards  me  from  over  the  sea 

Three  ships,  three  black  ships, 

They  will  carry  me,  Marya,  over  the  blue  sea, 

Over  the  blue  salt  sea, 

To  Yagailo,  the  son  of  Manuelo."  2 

This  is  what  happens,  and  the  princess  is  right.  Why  she  inter- 
prets the  dream  in  this  sense  remains  a  mystery.  The  poet  does 

1   Morison,  p.  115. 
2  Kireevski,  v,  p.  92  ;   Chadwick,  R.H.P.  p.  168. 

292 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

not  claim  to  understand  it  himself  and  gives  no  explanation.  Here 
the  sense  of  doom  works  with  a  special  force.  The  victim  is  not 
only  warned  that  something  will  happen  to  her  but  able  by  some 
unexplained  process  to  interpret  the  enigmatic  images  in  which  the 
presage  comes.  The  technique  used  suggests  the  presence  of 
incalculable  forces  which  make  themselves  known  by  means  not 
intelligible  to  ordinary  men. 

Dreams,  then,  are  useful  because  they  give  a  sense  of  destiny. 
So,  when  a  poet  has  enough  space  at  his  disposal  and  wishes  to 
tell  a  story  which,  in  his  view,  illustrates  the  power  of  fate,  he  may 
well  make  use  of  dreams  and  even  accumulate  them  to  add  to  his 
effect.  This  is  what  the  Norse  poet  does  in  AtlamdL  A  message 
comes  from  Atli  to  Gunnar  asking  him  to  go  to  him,  and  before 
a  decision  is  taken,  the  poet  prepares  a  brooding  atmosphere  of 
dread  by  his  use  of  dreams.  First,  Kostbera,  wife  of  Hogni,  who 
knows  from  reading  a  runic  message  from  Guthrun  that  something 
is  amiss,  dreams  three  dreams  and  reports  them  to  her  husband. 
In  the  first  she  sees  her  bed-covering  catch  fire  and  flames  bursting 
through  the  walls  of  her  home  ;  in  the  second,  a  bear  breaking 
pillars,  brandishing  his  claws,  and  seizing  many  victims  with  his 
mouth  ;  in  the  third,  an  eagle  flying  through  the  house  and  sprink- 
ling its  dwellers  with  blood.  To  the  reader  who  knows  the  story 
the  three  dreams  are  perhaps  intelligible  enough,  in  that  they 
suggest  the  catastrophe  which  awaits  the  sons  of  Gjuki  when  they 
go  to  Atli.  But  Kostbera,  who  sees  that  something  is  wrong, 
hardly  attempts  to  interpret  them,  except  in  the  third  case  when 
she  sees  that  the  eagle  is  Atli's  spirit.  But  her  husband  will  have 
nothing  of  it.  He  has  his  own  interpretations  :  in  the  first  dream 
he  sees  no  more  than  a  warning  that  her  bed-cover,  which  is  of 
little  value,  will  soon  be  burned  ;  in  the  second,  he  sees  a  presage 
of  rough  weather  : 

"  Now  a  storm  is  brewing,      and  wild  it  grows  swiftly, 
A  dream  of  an  ice-bear      means  a  gale  from  the  east  "  ;  x 

in  the  third,  he  sees  only  a  forecast  that  oxen  will  be  slaughtered. 
He  remains  obdurately  confident  and  tells  his  wife  : 

"  True  is  Atli's  heart,      whatever  thou  dreamest."  2 

In  the  circumstances  she  can  do  nothing  but  be  silent.  In  this 
set  of  dreams  the  poet  not  only  creates  a  sense  of  doom  but 
sketches  the  helplessness  of  its  victims.  Kostbera  does  not  know 
what  her  dreams  portend,  and  Hogni  rejects  the  notion  that  it  is 
anything  bad. 

1   AtlamdL ',  17.  2  Ibid.  19,  3. 

293 


HEROIC  POETRY 

These  three  dreams  are  followed  by  four  others,  dreamed  this 
time  by  Glaumvor,  the  wife  of  Gunnar.  Unlike  Kostbera's 
dreams,  Glaumvor's  are  almost  literal  and  certainly  easy  to  inter- 
pret. In  the  first  she  sees  a  gallows  and  her  husband,  still  alive, 
being  bitten  by  serpents ;  in  the  second,  a  sword  driven  through 
his  body  and  wolves  howling  at  his  head  and  feet ;  in  the  third, 
a  river  flowing  through  the  hall  and  breaking  over  the  feet  of 
Gunnar 's  brothers  ;  in  the  fourth,  dead  women  come  to  her  in  sad 
garments  and  summon  Gunnar  to  them.  Here  again  the  audience 
will  know  the  answers.  Glaumvor  dreams  of  the  future  when 
Gunnar  will  be  put  in  the  serpents'  den,  his  body  pierced,  his 
brothers  killed,  and  his  soul  fetched  by  the  Norns.  On  hearing 
of  these  dreams  Gunnar  is  less  sceptical  than  Hogni,  or  rather 
becomes  less  sceptical  as  he  hears  of  one  dream  after  another.  His 
answer  to  the  first  is  lost ;  the  second  he  treats  as  no  more  than  a 
forecast  of  hunting  ;  his  answer  to  the  third  is  also  lost ;  but  with 
the  fourth  he  seems  to  be  a  little  shaken.  At  least  he  does  not 
reject  it,  but  simply  reaffirms  his  purpose  to  go  to  Atli ;  and  indeed 
foresees  that  all  may  not  be  well : 

"  Too  late  is  thy  speaking,  for  so  is  it  settled  ; 
From  the  faring  I  turn  not,  the  going  is  fixed, 
Though  likely  it  is  that  our  lives  shall  be  short."  J 

In  the  two  sets  of  dreams  the  poet  uses  a  slightly  different  method. 
In  the  first  they  are  obscure,  and  Hogni  remains  unpersuaded ; 
in  the  second  they  are  relatively  clear,  and  in  the  end  Gunnar 
sees  that  something  is  wrong.  By  adopting  this  double  technique 
the  poet  shows  his  familiarity  with  the  ways  in  which  dreams  can 
be  used  in  heroic  poetry.  His  purpose  is  evidently  to  show  both 
how  inexorable  destiny  works  on  the  sons  of  Gjuki  and  how  heroic 
they  are  in  facing  it  when  they  know  it. 

Dreams  can  also  be  used  to  start  the  separate  episodes  of  a 
longer  poem.  Of  this  an  outstanding  example  is  Gilgamish.  In 
our  existing  text,  which  is  sadly  fragmentary  in  parts,  there  are  no 
less  than  seven  dreams,  and  in  the  full  text  there  may  well  have 
been  more.  All  these  seven  occur  before  important  changes  in  the 
action  and  make  some  contribution  to  them.  They  are  on  the 
whole  easy  to  interpret,  and  the  heroes  have  no  great  doubts 
about  -them.  The  first  comes  before  Gilgamish's  struggle  with 
Enkidu.  He  sees  a  great  figure  falling  onto  him.  It  is  too  strong 
for  him,  and  he  ends  by  holding  it  to  his  breast  like  a  woman. 
This,  as  Gilgamish's  mother  explains,  is  the  great  friend  whom  he 

1  Atlamdl,  26. 

294 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

is  soon  to  make  after  struggling  with  him.  So  the  friendship  with 
Enkidu  is  foreshadowed.  He  then  recounts  a  second  dream  in 
which  an  axe  falls  into  Erech,  and  he  presents  it  to  his  mother ; 
and  this  too  she  explains  to  mean  that  he  will  make  a  great  friend. 
The  second  set  of  dreams  come  just  before  the  fight  with  Humbaba, 
which  is  the  next  great  episode  after  Gilgamish  and  Enkidu  have 
made  their  alliance.  The  account  of  the  first  dream  is  lost.  In  the 
second  Gilgamish  sees  himself  and  Enkidu  standing  on  a  mountain 
peak  which  begins  to  topple,  and  Enkidu  knows  that  this  means 
that  they  will  conquer  Humbaba.  In  a  third  dream  Gilgamish  sees 
something  more  frightening : 

The  firmament  roared,  the  earth  resounded, 

The  day  was  black  with  rising  darkness  and  lightning  flashes, 

Flames  were  kindled,  and  there  too  was  Pestilence 

Filled  to  overflowing,  Death  was  gorged. 

The  glare  faded,  the  fires  faded, 

The  brands  turned  to  ashes.1 

The  interpretation  is  missing,  but  it  must  surely  have  referred  to 
Humbaba,  "  whose  roar  is  a  whirlwind  ",  and  have  portended  his 
defeat.  Lastly,  when  Enkidu  is  about  to  die,  he  dreams  of  death 
as  a  man  with  a  dark  face  and  the  claws  of  a  lion,  who  sets  on  him 
and  overcomes  him ;  then  he  dreams  of  the  underworld  in  all  its 
emptiness  and  drabness.  So  in  each  of  these  three  episodes,  the 
formation  of  a  friendship  between  Gilgamish  and  Enkidu,  the 
attack  on  Humbaba,  and  the  death  of  Enkidu,  the  poet  puts  dreams 
in  the  forefront  of  his  narrative.  By  this  means  he  may  to  some 
extent  spoil  the  effect  of  surprise  in  what  follows,  but  he  achieves 
something  else  no  less  important.  The  dreams  show  the  grandeur 
of  what  the  heroes  do  and  are  an  imaginative  and  illuminating 
comment  on  it. 

Roland  uses  dreams  less  freely  than  Gilgamish ,  but  with  a  good 
sense  of  their  dramatic  possibilities.  They  are  used  on  two  great 
occasions,  first  after  Charlemagne  has  commanded  Roland  to 
command  the  rear-guard,  the  second  before  his  counter-attack  on 
the  Saracens.  On  each  occasion  the  Emperor  dreams  two  dreams, 
and  on  neither  is  he  disturbed  by  them  to  the  point  of  waking. 
These  dreams  are  symbolic,  but  not  difficult  to  interpret.  On  the 
first  occasion  the  first  dream  presents  the  traitor  Ganelon  in  his 
own  person,  though  his  activities  are  a  little  unusual : 

That  Emperour,  rich  Charles,  lies  asleep  ; 
Dreams  that  he  stands  in  the  great  pass  of  Size, 
In  his  two  hands  his  ashen  spear  he  sees  ; 

1  Gilgamish,  v,  iii,  15-19. 

295  u 


HEROIC  POETRY 

Guenes  the  count  that  spear  from  him  doth  seize, 
Brandishes  it  and  twists  it  with  such  ease, 
That  flown  into  the  sky  the  flinders  seem.1 

We  need  not  press  the  meaning  of  the  spear  too  far.  It  is  Charle- 
magne's chief  weapon  of  defence,  and  may  mean  his  rear-guard  or 
Roland  or  both.  It  strikes  a  note  of  warning  against  treachery  and 
danger,  and  leaves  no  doubt  who  the  traitor  is.  The  second  dream 
is  more  complicated  : 

And  after  this  another  vision  saw, 

In  France,  at  Aix,  in  his  Chapelle  once  more, 

That  his  right  arm  an  evil  bear  did  gnaw  ; 

Out  of  Ardennes  he  saw  a  leopard  stalk, 

His  body  dear  did  savagely  assault ; 

But  then  there  dashed  a  harrier  from  the  hall, 

Leaping  in  the  air  he  sped  to  Charles*  call, 

By  the  right  ear  that  felon  bear  he  caught, 

And  furiously  the  leopard  next  he  fought. 

Of  battle  great  the  Franks  then  seemed  to  talk, 

Yet  which  might  win  they  knew  not,  in  his  thought.2 

This  belongs  to  the  familiar  class  of  animal-dreams  and  needs  some 
elucidation.  The  Emperor's  right  arm  is  Roland,  for  so  he  is 
called  elsewhere.3  The  bear  and  the  leopard  are  the  Saracens. 
They  may  even  be  the  king  Marsilies  and  his  uncle,  the  Algalife, 
but  there  is  no  need  to  be  too  precise  about  this.  The  harrier  is 
again  Roland,  who  comes  to  Charlemagne's  defence.  This  dream 
is  not  so  much  a  warning  as  a  prophecy,  and  it  is  characteristic  of 
Charlemagne  that  he  pays  little  attention  to  it.  He  is  used  to 
danger  and  does  not  trouble  too  much  about  it  in  advance. 

The  second  occasion  when  Charlemagne  dreams  follows  rather 
a  similar  pattern.  First  comes  Saint  Gabriel  who  warns  him  that 
another  battle  awaits  him  and  leaves  him  in  doubt  of  its  outcome. 
After  natural  portents  of  thunder  and  wind  have  fallen  on  the 
army,  wild  beasts  and  monsters  feed  on  the  soldiers,  whom  the 
Emperor  is  unable  to  help  ;  then 

Out  of  a  wood  came  a  great  lion  then, 

'Twas  very  proud  and  fierce  and  terrible  ; 

His  body  dear  sought  out,  and  on  him  leapt, 

Each  in  his  arms,  wrestling,  the  other  held  ; 

But  he  knew  not  which  conquered,  nor  which  fell. * 

This  dream  forecasts  accurately  what  is  to  come.  The  great 
Pagan  army  under  Baligant  is  like  a  tempest  and  inflicts  great 
losses  on  the  Christian  army.  Its  leader,  Baligant,  is  like  a  lion 

1  Roland,  718-23.  2  Ibid.  725-35- 

3  Ibid.  597.  4  Ibid.  2549-53. 

296 


DEVICES  OF  NARRATIVE 

whom  Charlemagne  must  subdue.  The  dream  is  meant  to  instil 
fear  and  watchfulness  but  the  Emperor,  as  is  his  wont,  sleeps  on. 
It  is  followed  by  another  which  is  a  little  more  mysterious  : 

Him  seemed  in  France,  at  Aix,  on  a  terrace, 
And  that  he  held  a  bruin  by  two  chains  ; 
Out  of  Ardenne  saw  thirty  bears  that  came, 
And  each  of  them  words,  as  a  man  might,  spake  : 
Said  to  him  :  "  Sire,  give  him  to  us  again  ! 
It  is  not  right  that  he  with  you  remain, 
He's  of  our  kin,  and  we  must  lend  him  aid." 
A  harrier  fair  ran  out  of  his  palace, 
Among  them  all  the  greatest  bear  assailed 
On  the  green  grass,  beyond  his  friends  some  way. 
There  saw  the  King  marvellous  give  and  take  ; 
But  he  knew  not  which  fell,  nor  which  o'ercame.1 

This  dream  refers  to  the  traitor  Ganelon,  who  is  the  chained  bear 
and  is  supported  by  his  thirty  kinsmen.  The  most  powerful  of 
these,  Pinabel,  is  challenged  by  Thierry  of  Anjou,  who  is  the 
harrier.  This  dream  forecasts  what  is  to  happen  later  in  the  poem, 
but  leaves  both  the  action  and  its  outcome  obscure.  It  is  a  warning 
to  the  Emperor  about  the  efforts  which  will  be  made  later  to  save 
Ganelon  from  his  doom.  To  the  audience,  who  may  not  know 
exactly  what  is  going  to  happen,  it  suggests  even  more  troubles  in 
store  for  Charlemagne.  The  dreams  in  Roland  foretell  what  is 
coming  without  saying  too  much  about  it. 

A  noteworthy  and  unusual  variant  of  the  dream-motive  comes 
early  in  the  Iliad.  The  dream  comes  from  the  gods,  but  Zeus, 
who  sends  it,  intends  to  deceive  Agamemnon  by  it ;  for  by  this 
means  the  Achaeans  will  lose  many  men,  and  Achilles  will  be  asked 
to  go  back  to  battle  with  full  honours.  The  dream  tells  Agamem- 
non to  order  the  Achaeans  to  arm,  since  now  is  the  time  fated  for 
the  capture  of  Troy.  Agamemnon  believes  the  dream,  and  can 
hardly  do  otherwise,  since  dreams  come  from  Zeus,  but  behaves 
very  peculiarly.  He  makes  a  speech  in  the  assembly  of  chieftains, 
in  which,  in  order  to  test  the  spirit  of  his  army,  he  announces  that 
he  has  decided  to  abandon  the  siege  and  go  home.  The  result  is 
panic  and  confusion,  and  the  situation  is  saved  only  by  the  purpose- 
ful wisdom  of  Odysseus.  In  this  unusual  situation  Homer  puts 
the  old  theme  of  the  dream  to  an  uncommon  purpose.  Perhaps  he 
wishes  to  suggest  that  since  the  dream  is  deceitful  and  represents 
no  real  will  of  the  gods,  it  creates  unwise  ideas  in  Agamemnon's 
mind  and  leads  to  a  general  panic.  We  may  possibly  discern 
Homer's  basic  reasons  for  this  remarkable  device.  He  seems  to 

1  Ibid.  2556-67. 

297 


HEROIC  POETRY 

wish  in  the  first  place  to  get  his  armies  into  movement  after  the 
quarrel  of  Achilles  and  Agamemnon,  and  for  this  he  needs  a  scene 
of  general  activity ;  and  in  the  second  place  he  is  able  to  show 
Agamemnon  as  the  troubled,  care- ridden,  none  too  confident 
leader  that  he  is.  To  secure  these  ends  Homer  takes  the  traditional 
theme  of  the  dream  and  gives  to  it  an  unexpected  turn.  Here,  as 
often  elsewhere,  he  seems  to  feel  that  it  is  not  enough  to  use  an  old 
device  in  a  familiar  way  :  he  must  see  what  new  surprise  he  can 
create  through  it.  So  he  starts  with  the  unusual  conception  of  a 
deceitful  dream  and  proceeds  to  a  scene  of  confusion  and  dismay. 
In  any  case  he  succeeds  in  creating  a  situation  in  which  the 
Achaean  army  is  marshalled  and  the  main  first  movement  of  the 
Iliad  is  set  going.  If  the  Odyssey  begins  with  the  familiar  theme  of 
someone  arriving  with  news,  the  start  of  the  Iliad  owes  something 
to  the  theme  of  a  dream,  even  though  it  is  unlike  most  other  dreams 
and  has  a  special  complication. 


298 


VIII 
SOME  PECULIARITIES  OF  COMPOSITION 

HEROIC  poetry  has  in  the  past  been  misunderstood  and  misjudged 
because  it  works  by  rules  different  from  those  which  apply  to 
poets  who  write  books. ["Much  of  the  "  Higher  Criticism  "  of  the 
Homeric  poems,  Beowulf,  and  Roland  suffers  from  the  serious 
defect  that  its  standards  belong  to  a  reading,  not  to  a  listening, 
public  and  that  it  takes  no  account  of  the  special  circumstances  of 
oral  composition^  For  instance,  when  the  Abbe  d'Aubignac  wrote 
his  Conjectures  academiques  in  1664  and  argued  that  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  were  a  number  of  independent  songs  collected  by 
Lycurgus  at  Sparta  in  the  eighth  century  B.C.,1  he  was  guided 
primarily  by  the  literary  ideals  of  France  in  his  time  and  failed  to 
see  that  Homer  did  not  share  them.  Again,  wrhen  F.  A.  Wolf 
attacked  the  unity  of  Homer  in  his  Prolegomena  in  1795,  he  based 
part  of  his  argument  on  the  assumption  that  writing  did  not  exist 
in  Homer's  time  and  that  without  it  no  poet  could  have  composed 
poems  so  long  as  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey.  This,  as  we  now  know, 
is  a  fallacy,  and  Wolf's  main  arguments  are  outmoded.  But  his 
spirit  survives,  even  to-day,  when  the  nature  of  oral  composition 
has  been  carefully  studied,  and  some  scholars  continue  to  criticise 
heroic  poetry  as  if  it  were  composed  in  the  same  way  as  a  modern 
novel.  This  is  to  approach  a  complex  subject  with  unwarranted 
presuppositions  and  leads  almost  always  to  error.C  Since  oral  poets 
compose  in  special  conditions,  their  work  shows  special  character- 
istics, and  examination  of  these  will  help  not  only  to  remove  current 
misconceptions  but  to  show  the  difficulties  in  which  these  poems 
are  composedj 

^The  conditions  of  oral  performance  may  mean  that  sooner  or 
later  a  poet  contradicts  himself  or  muddles  something  in  his 
narrative.  There  are  few  heroic  poems  in  which  some  such 
contradiction  cannot  be  found.  The  poet  so  concentrates  on  his 
immediate  task  that  he  may  not  remember  all  that  has  gone  before 
or  foresee  all  that  will  come  later.  The  chances  are  that  any  such 
slip  will  be  of  little  importance,  since,  if  the  poet  does  not  notice 

1  Cf.  J.  B.  Bury,  C.A.H.  ii,  p.  502. 
299 


HEROIC  POETRY 

it,  it  is  not  likely  that  his  audience  will  notice  it  either.  But  when 
his  poem  is  written  down  and  subjected  to  the  sharp  eyes  of  critical 
scholars,  what  was  originally  a  trivial  slip  may  be  regarded  as  a 
grave  error  and  made  a  foundation  for  bold  theories  of  multiple 
authorship.  We  must  remember  that  most  heroic  poems  are 
composed  for  one  performance  only  and  that  the  audience  has 
no  written  text  before  it.  It  cannot  turn  pages  back  to  see  if  what 
comes  later  agrees  with  what  has  come  before,  and  it  is  not  likely 
to  subject  a  poem  to  minute  criticism.  Since  it  follows  a  tale  with 
its  ears  and  has  to  keep  its  attention  on  the  sequence  of  events  told 
by  the  bard,  it  has  no  time  to  ask  inconvenient  questions.  It  is 
interested  in  the  main  elements  of  a  tale  and  the  way  in  which 
they  are  treated.  The  poet  therefore  is  not  much  concerned  to 
make  everything  consistent  and  may  well  fall  into  what  we  may 
regard  as  serious  faults. 

One  source  of  such  contradictions  seems  to  be  the  existence 
of  formulae  which  the  poet  uses  whenever  they  suit  his  purpose. 
In  his  attachment  to  them  he  may  not  see  that  sometimes  they 
betray  him  into  saying  what  he  might  otherwise  have  avoided. 
For  instance,  the  Iliad  is  guilty  of  one  famous  contradiction.  At 
one  place  Pylaemenes,  king  of  the  Paphlagonians,  is  killed  by 
Menelaus,  and  at  another  he  is  alive  at  the  funeral  of  his  son.  It 
is  true  that  Pylaemenes  is  a  quite  unimportant  person  and  that 
slips  equally  grave  or  equally  trivial  may  be  found  in  poets  so 
careful  as  Virgil  and  Dante.  But  in  this  case  we  may  surmise 
what  the  cause  of  the  slip  was.  When  Pylaemenes  is  killed,  Homer 
knows  what  he  is  doing  and  gives  four  lines  to  it : 

Then  did  they  find  in  the  field  Pylaemenes,  tireless  in  battle, 
The  Paphlagonian  people  he  ruled,  a  spear-man  high-hearted. 
Unto  him  Atreus'  son,  Menelaus,  famed  with  the  spear-shaft, 
Went  as  he  stood  in  his  place  and  struck  with  a  spear  on  the  collar.1 

Much  later  in  the  poem  Pylaemenes'  son,  Harpalion,  is  killed  by 
Meriones.  His  companions  carry  him  off  on  a  shield  to  Troy  : 

And  with  them  went  also  his  father,  lamenting, 
Yet  did  he  not  receive  any  recompense  for  his  dead  son.2 

This  is  beyond  dispute  a  mistake,  but  we  can  account  for  it.  The 
lines  in  which  the  father  laments  and  follows  the  corpse  are 
probably  traditional  and  formulaic.  Pylaemenes  is  not  mentioned 
by  name  in  them,  and  Homer,  in  employing  a  familiar  form  of 
words,  has  for  the  moment  forgotten  its  full  implications. 

1  //.  v,  576-9.  2  Ibid,  xiii,  658-9. 

300 


SOME  PECULIARITIES  OF  COMPOSITION 

(j\  similar  mistake  may  be  found  in  Beowulf,  where  the  poet 
seems  to  be  in  some  doubt  about  the  sex  of  Grendel's  Dam. 
She  is  normally  feminine,  but  in  three  places  she  seems  to  be 
masculine : 

He  who  in  dread  waters  his  dwelling  must  keep  (1260) 
I  swear  to  you  this,  that  he  shall  not  escape  me  (1392) 
Nor  on  ocean  ground,  go  where  he  will  (1394). 

This  inconsistency  has  not  escaped  the  critics,  who  have  suggested 
that  they  either  reflect  an  earlier  version  of  the  story,  in  which 
Beowulf  kills  Grendel  in  the  cave,  or  are  transferred  from  the 
fight  with  him  to  the  fight  with  the  Dam.  There  is  an  easier 
solution  than  either  of  these.  It  is  that  the  poet  operates  with 
formulaic  phrases  which  do  not  quite  fit  his  subject.  If  the  first 
case  concerns  monsters,  the  others  need  not  necessarily  do  so,  and 
it  looks  as  if  the  poet,  employing  a  traditional  means,  failed  to  see 
that  it  was  not  entirely  appropriate  here.  There  are  other  examples 
of  such  misfits  in  Beowulf.1  They  would  hardly  trouble  an 
audience  used  to  formulaic  poetry  and  not  very  interested  in  the 
precise  sex  of  a  monster.  ] 

Formulae  may  account  for  some  contradictions,  but  they  do 
not  account  for  all.  Some  are  quite  clearly  due  to  slips  of  memory. 
With  no  written  text  to  help  him  the  poet  may  well  falter  and 
not  notice  it,  particularly  if  it  does  not  really  affect  the  main 
course  of  his  narrative.  Homer  is  sometimes  guilty  of  this. 
Though  most  of  the  accusations  against  him  have  been  disproved, 
there  are  one  or  two  cases  where  he  errs  on  the  side  of  vagueness, 
if  not  of  contradiction.  For  instance,  in  the  Odyssey,  when 
Odysseus  is  transformed  into  a  beggar  by  Athene,  she  destroys 
the  "  brown  hair  "  on  his  head  : z  later,  when  she  restores  him, 
he  has  a  blue-black  beard.3  Of  course  a  hero  like  Odysseus  may 
well  combine  brown  hair  with  a  blue-black  beard,  but  one  cannot 
help  wondering  whether  Homer  really  gave  thought  to  the 
matter  and  did  not  slightly  change  his  conception  of  Odysseus' 
appearance.  Less  excusable  is  the  treatment  of  the  gods  in  Book  I 
of  the  Iliad.  Athene  comes  down  to  see  Achilles  4  and  soon 
afterwards  goes  back  to  Olympus  to  the  other  gods,5  though  a 
little  later  we  hear  that  they  have  all  gone  to  the  land  of  the 
Ethiopians  for  twelve  days.6  This  does  not  matter,  but  it  is  an 
undeniable  slip.  Something  of  the  same  kind  may  be  seen  in 
Roland.  Before  Roland  dies  he  takes  his  famous  oliphant  and 

1  E.g.  1344,  1379,  1887,  2421,  2685.  2  Od.  xiii,  431. 

3  Ibid,  xvi,  176.  4  //.  i,  194.  5  Ibid.  221.  6  Ibid.  424  ff. 

3OI 


HEROIC  POETRY 

breaks  it  on  the  head  of  a  pagan  who  is  trying  to  kill  him.  He  is 
glad  to  kill  the  enemy,  but  sorry  to  smash  his  oliphant : 

"  But  my  great  one,  my  olifant  I  broke  ; 
Fallen  from  it  the  crystal  and  the  gold."  l 

Later,  after  Roland's  death,  the  oliphant  is  found  by  Charles  near 
his  body  and  entrusted  to  Guineman.  So  far  there  is  no  contradic- 
tion, but,  when  the  battle  against  Baligant's  army  takes  place,  the 
horn  seems  to  be  whole  and  sound  and  able  to  do  its  old  work ; 
for  it  is  blown,  and  sounds  louder  than  all  the  other  horns  : 

Above  them  all  boomed  the  olifant  again,2 
And  the  olifant  sounds  over  all  its  knell. 3 

If  the  oliphant  is  really  broken,  as  we  have  been  led  to  think,  this 
after-life  is  impossible.  The  point  is  of  no  importance,  but  there 
it  is. 

The  real  reason  why  oral  poets  make  slips  like  these  is  that 
their  conditions  of  performance  force  them  to  concentrate  on  one 
thing  at  a  time.  They  must  at  all  costs  make  themselves  clear  to 
their  audiences  and  cannot  encumber  their  poems  with  too  many 
details.  If  they  do,  they  lose  attention  through  putting  too  great 
a  strain  on  it.  The  result  is  that  in  concentrating  on  a  given  scene 
they  may  neglect  or  forget  something  which  precedes  it.  This  may 
not  be  important  and  indeed  seldom  is,  but  it  is  not  what  we  would 
expect  from  a  modern  novelist  or  a  writer  of  "  literary  "  epic. 
Each  separate  scene  tends  to  develop  its  own  character  and  to  have 
its  own  fullness.  It  is  therefore  not  surprising  that  it  may  some- 
times cause  contradictions  in  the  main  narrative.  When  Har- 
palion  is  killed,  the  poet  feels  that  he  must  make  someone  mourn 
for  him ;  for  without  that  his  death  is  incomplete  and  lacks 
pathos.  Tradition  supplies  the  mourner  in  the  dead  youth's 
father,  and  a  contradiction  arises.  When  Charlemagne  orders 
horns  to  be  blown,  it  is  obviously  right  that  among  them  should 
be  the  famous  oliphant  of  Roland,  and  it  is  mentioned,  even  at  the 
cost  of  contradicting  what  has  been  said  before.  On  an  ordinary 
reading  such  contradictions  are  hardly  noticeable,  but,  when  they 
are  noticed,  they  may  cause  uneasiness.  But  that  is  because  we 
are  accustomed  to  reading  poems  instead  of  listening  to  them. 

This  condition  explains  some  peculiarities  of  heroic  poetry, 
and  especially  its  tendency  to  omit  much  that  we  might  expect  to 
be  mentioned.  The  oral  poet  does  not  tidy  up  his  loose  ends 
but  leaves  them  as  soon  as  they  have  served  their  purpose,  with 

1  Roland,  2295-6.  2  Ibid.  3119.  3  Ibid.  3302. 

302 


SOME  PECULIARITIES  OF  COMPOSITION 

the  result  that  we  may  feel  that  he  neglects  minor  details  in  his 
story.  This  kind  of  omission  takes  different  forms.  First,  a 
character  may  be  introduced  and  play  a  part  of  some  importance, 
only  to  disappear  without  anything  being  said  about  it.  For 
instance,  in  the  Norse  Atlakvitha  the  action  is  set  in  motion  by 
the  arrival  at  Gunnar's  court  of  Atli's  messenger  and  agent, 
Knefroth.  His  part  is  important,  since  he  has  to  persuade  Gunnar 
to  come  on  a  visit  to  Atli,  and  there  are  good  reasons  why  Gunnar 
should  not  go.  Knefroth  presents  his  case  skilfully,  and  succeeds 
in  his  task  : 

And  Knefroth  spake  loudly,     his  words  were  crafty, 
The  hero  from  the  south,      on  the  high  bench  sitting.1 

But  once  Knefroth  has  had  his  say,  no  more  is  heard  about  him. 
He  has  played  his  part,  and  the  poet  turns  to  the  next  item  on  his 
programme,  the  speeches  which  Gunnar  and  Hogni  and  their  wives 
make  about  the  expedition.  In  this  he  has  no  need  of  Knefroth, 
and  any  mention  of  him  might  interfere  with  the  direct  and  forceful 
presentation  of  a  leading  theme.  Again,  in  Roland  the  Saracen, 
Blancandrin,  plays  a  very  important  part.  He  urges  King  Marsilies 
to  feign  submission  to  Charles  (24  ff.),  is  the  chief  of  the  embassy 
which  comes  with  a  false  offer  of  surrender  (68),  addresses  Charles 
(122  ff.),  rides  off  with  Ganelon  and  plots  Roland's  death  with  him 
(414),  and  conducts  the  tricky  negotiations  between  Ganelon  and 
Marsile,  when  it  looks  as  if  Ganelon  has  overplayed  his  part  and 
is  likely  to  be  killed  by  the  Saracens  (506-11).  But  after  this  he 
disappears,  and  nothing  at  all  is  said  of  him.  Though  he  is  an 
important  figure  in  the  Saracen  army,  "  very  wise  "  and  "  a 
gallant  knight  ",  he  takes  no  part  in  any  of  the  battles  or  of  the 
events  which  follow  them.  Once  the  poet  has  used  him  for  a 
special  purpose,  he  dismisses  him  without  a  word  and  moves  on  to 
another  topic  in  which  Blancandrin's  services  are  no  longer 
needed.  Homer  does  something  of  the  same  kind  in  the  Iliad 
with  Thersites.  When  Agamemnon  unwisely  calls  an  assembly 
and  says  that  he  intends  to  give  up  the  siege  of  Troy,  he  excites 
dismay  and  panic,  and  the  first  to  speak  is  Thersites,  a  man  of  no 
lineage  and  no  account,  on  whose  ugly  appearance  Homer  dwells 
with  some  relish.  He  reviles  Agamemnon  and  is  punished  for  it  by 
Odysseus  who,  after  saying  what  he  thinks  of  him,  strikes  him  on 
the  back  and  shoulders  with  a  sceptre  and  leaves  a  great  weal 
on  them.  He  sits  down  humiliated,  and  the  crowd  applauds  the 
action.2  That  is  the  end  of  him.  We  are  not  even  told  that  he 

1  Atlakvitha,  2,  3-4.  2  //.  ii,  211  ff. 

303 


HEROIC  POETRY 

leaves  the  assembly.  It  is  enough  that  he  has  played  his  part  and 
is  needed  no  longer.  Immediately  afterwards  Homer  turns  to  a 
different  theme. 

If  important  characters  can  be  dismissed  in  this  perfunctory 
way,  we  need  not  be  surprised  if  actions  which  have  some  import- 
ance at  one  stage  of  a  story  are  later  forgotten  or  neglected.  Homer 
understands  how  to  do  this.  He  seldom  stresses  a  small  point 
beyond  its  immediate  usefulness.  For  instance,  Achilles  lays  down 
his  spear,  but  fifty  lines  later  has  it  in  his  hand,1  though  we  are  not 
told  that  he  has  picked  it  up.  Poseidon  arrives  at  the  battlefield 
in  a  chariot  drawn  by  horses  with  golden  manes,  and  shackles  them 
with  golden  shackles.2  When  he  leaves  the  field,  nothing  is  said 
of  either  horses  or  chariot.3  Zeus  watches  the  battle  from  Mount 
Ida,4  but  soon  after  is  back  on  Olympus  without  our  being  told 
that  he  has  gone  there.5  These  are  not  errors  of  memory  but  a 
necessary  economy  in  an  art  which  treats  of  one  thing  at  a  time. 
To  elaborate  all  the  implications  of  such  themes  would  be  to  over- 
burden the  narrative.  So  Homer  lets  well  alone  and  leaves  us  to 
fill  in  the  gaps  if  we  wish  to.  The  same  thing  can  be  seen  in 
Roland  in  the  case  of  the  hostages  which  Charles  demands  from 
the  Saracens  and  duly  receives.  The  poet  pays  some  attention  to 
them.  Blancandrin  suggests  that  they  should  be  sent : 

"  Send  hostages,  should  he  demand  surety, 
Ten  or  a  score,  our  loyal  oath  to  bind."  6 

In  due  course  they  arrive,  accompanied  by  Ganelon,  who  presents 
them  to  the  Emperor  : 

"  Tribute  I  bring  you,  very  great  and  rare, 
And  twenty  men  ;  look  after  them  with  care."  7 

But  once  the  hostages  are  delivered,  nothing  more  is  heard  of  them. 
Although  they  are  a  surety  for  the  good  behaviour  of  the  Saracens, 
and  should  be  killed  when  the  Saracens  break  their  word,  the  poet 
does  not  mention  them.  He  has  more  interesting  and  more 
important  matters  in  hand,  and  the  hostages  can  be  forgotten. 
So  too  in  Beowulf,  Hrothgar's  queen,  Wealhtheow,  comes  to  the 
feast  in  honour  of  Beowulf,  pledges  his  health,  and  makes  a  speech 
in  his  honour.8  But  once  she  has  done  her  duty,  no  more  is  said 
about  her,  and  we  are  not  told  that  she  leaves  the  hall,  but  have  to 
infer  it  later  when  Hrothgar  goes  to  join  her  : 

1  //.  xxi,  17  and  67.  z  Ibid,  xiii,  23.  3  Ibid,  xiv,  293. 

4  Ibid.  157.  5  Ibid,  xvi,  431.  6  Roland,  40-41. 

7  Ibid.  678-9.  8  Beowulf,  614  ff. 

304 


SOME  PECULIARITIES  OF  COMPOSITION 

He  would  the  War- Chief,      Wealhtheow,  seek, 
A  Queen  for  his  couch.1 

Similarly,  the  sword  Hrunting,  which  belongs  to  Unferth,  has 
some  importance  in  the  fight  with  Grendel's  Dam.  Unferth  lends 
it  to  Beowulf,  and  the  poet  describes  it  at  length.2  Later,  when 
Beowulf  sets  out  for  home,  Unferth  offers  him  the  sword  as  a 
gift,3  though  no  word  has  been  said  about  it  having  returned 
meanwhile  to  Unferth's  possession.  These  details  do  not  matter. 
The  important  thing  is  to  focus  attention  on  the  main  events,  and 
this  is  done  by  an  adroit  art  of  omissionTj 

Omission  is  practised  with  some  skill  by  Homer  when  the 
personal  relations  of  his  characters  seem  likely  to  interfere  with 
the  development  of  the  story.  He  is  too  good  a  poet  to  neglect 
the  poetical  possibilities  of  such  relations,  but  he  so  places  their 
great  moments  that  they  attract  attention  before  the  plot  really 
demands  them.  For  instance,  the  wonderful  scene  between 
Hector  and  Andromache  on  the  walls  of  Troy  has  in  it  much  of  a 
last  scene  between  husband  and  wife.4  After  it  we  feel  that  they 
may  never  meet  again  and  that  they  have  said  their  final  words 
to  one  another.  But  in  fact  the  plot  of  the  Iliad  suggests  that  they 
do  meet  again.  For  soon  afterwards  all  the  Trojan  heroes  go  back 
to  Troy,  and  we  must  assume  that  Hector  is  among  them.5  But 
Homer  has  placed  his  scene  between  Hector  and  Andromache  in 
conditions  which  allow  nothing  to  interfere  with  it,  and  he  is  not 
going  to  spoil  it  later  by  any  anti-climax  or  make  it  subordinate  to 
some  other  theme.  So,  too,  when  Odysseus  leaves  Calypso  on  her 
remote  island,  Homer  presents  a  charming  scene  of  farewell 
between  them,  when  Calypso,  with  a  forbearance  not  always  to  be 
found  in  goddesses,  wishes  him  good  speed  in  his  departure, 
though  she  feels  that  she  is  in  no  way  inferior  to  the  wife  whom  he 
longs  to  see.  He  accepts  what  she  says  but  insists  that  he  must  go.6 
This  is  the  last  scene  between  them  in  the  Odyssey,  but  we  may 
infer  that  it  is  not  the  last  occasion  when  they  see  one  another. 
For  after  it  Odysseus  spends  four  days  building  his  boat  and 
Calypso  helps  him  by  providing  sails  and  food.  Homer  wishes  to 
deal  with  one  theme  at  a  time,  and  the  farewell  must  be  done  with 
before  the  boat-building  is  begun.  The  farewell  comes  first, 
because  the  boat-building  prepares  the  way  to  Odysseus'  voyage 
and  is  a  necessary,  immediate  preliminary  to  it.  A  similar  tech- 
nique is  used  with  Nausicaa.  In  the  first  hours  of  Odysseus' 
arrival  on  Phaeacia  she  plays  a  leading  part.  She  saves  his  life, 

1  Ibid.  664-5.  *  Ibid.  1455  ff.  3  Ibid.  1807  ff. 

4  //.  vi,  390  ff.  5  Ibid,  vii,  477.  ft  Od.  v,  202  ff. 

3°5 


HEROIC  POETRY 

gives  him  food  and  drink  and  clothing,  and  brings  him  to  her 
parents'  palace.  Then  she  disappears,  except  for  one  short  and 
charming  moment  when  Odysseus  meets  her  on  the  threshold  when 
he  is  coming  from  the  bath.1  She  reminds  him  of  what  she  has 
done  for  him,  and  he  thanks  her  for  it.  That  is  all.  He  has  still 
much  before  him  in  Phaeacia,  but  she  is  not  mentioned  again. 
Attention  is  now  turned  to  Odysseus'  relations  with  the  king  and 
queen,  his  recital  of  his  adventures,  and  his  preparations  to  return 
home.  In  each  of  these  cases  Homer  uses  the  same  technique  and 
justifies  it  abundantly. 

Oral  composition  creates  special  problems  for  the  presentation 
of  character  and  motives.  The  poet  addresses  an  audience  of 
simple  people  who  may  well  appreciate  the  salient  points  of  a 
personality  but  must  not  be  expected  to  understand  any  com- 
plicated psychology.  Even  if  the  poet  himself  has  considerable 
insight  into  character  and  understands  mixed  motives,  he  will 
hardly  carry  his  audience  with  him.  Nor  would  the  conditions  of 
performance  allow  any  great  elaboration,  even  if  he  wished  to 
practise  it.  Just  as  oral  composition  insists  that  one  event  at  a 
time  is  sufficient  and  that  irrelevant  or  unnecessary  additions  must 
be  avoided,  so  in  the  presentation  of  character  it  seems  to  insist 
that  one  mood  or  motive  is  enough  at  a  time  and  that  to  attempt 
more  is  to  blur  the  clarity  which  is  indispensable  to  success.  This 
may  be  a  limitation  on  the  presentation  of  character,  but  it  has  at 
least  the  advantage  that  many  heroic  persons  have  a  simplicity 
which  is  delightfully  real  and  convincing,  even  if  it  is  not  very 
subtle.  Odysseus  and  Gilgamish,  Roland  and  Alaman  Bet,  are 
not  complicated  like  the  characters  of  a  modern  novel,  but  they 
have  their  own  rich  kind  of  being  and  act  in  accordance  with  their 
own  inner  necessities.  On  the  whole  the  characters  of  heroic 
poetry  are  of  this  kind,  but  there  are  places  where  the  convolutions 
of  the  story  demand  a  greater  complexity  of  character,  and  then 
the  poet  has  to  evolve  his  own  technique  of  adapting  his  needs  to 
the  conditions  of  composition. 

The  poet  solves  this  problem  by  presenting  not  a  complex 
situation  in  a  hero's  soul  at  a  given  moment  but  a  series  of  psy- 
chological states  which  may  look  inconsistent,  as  they  appear  in 
succession,  but  are  actually  consistent  enough  if  we  see  that  this 
is  a  way  of  treating  what  is  really  a  single  problem.  A  good 
example  of  this  may  be  found  in  Roland.  The  treachery  of 
Ganelon  is  fundamental  to  the  whole  poem,  and  the  poet  knows 
how  important  it  is.  He  also  knows  that  it  is  not  at  all  simple  or 

1   Od.  viii,  456  ff. 

306 


SOME  PECULIARITIES  OF  COMPOSITION 

obvious.  A  distinguished  warrior  like  Ganelon  does  not  become 
a  traitor  without  some  powerful  motive,  and  such  a  motive  may 
itself  be  complex.  The  poet  has  clearly  given  thought  to  this 
question  and  found  his  solution  for  it,  but  he  proceeds  according 
to  the  demands  of  oral  composition  and  sets  out  his  scheme  in  a 
series  of  statements  which  may  look  contradictory  to  those  who 
are  not  used  to  this  art.  The  treacherous  plan  begins  in  Ganelon's 
mind  when  Roland  suggests  that  he,  Ganelon,  should  be  sent  on 
a  dangerous  mission  to  the  Saracens.  Ganelon  is  enraged  by  the 
suggestion  and  bursts  into  a  furious  outburst : 

"  Fool,  wherefore  art  so  wrathful  ? 
All  men  know  well  that  I  am  thy  good-father  ; 
Thou  hast  decreed,  to  Marsiliun  I  travel. 
Then  if  God  grant  that  I  return  hereafter, 
PU  follow  thee  with  such  a  force  of  passion 
That  will  endure  so  long  as  life  may  last  thee."  l 

Here  Ganelon's  anger  turns  on  a  point  of  honour.  He  is  perfectly 
willing  to  be  sent  by  the  Emperor  on  this  mission,  as  his  subsequent 
words  make  clear,  but  he  cannot  endure  that  Roland  should 
suggest  that  he  should  go,  since  this  implies  that  he  would  not 
volunteer  of  his  own  accord.  This  behaviour  is  quite  in  accord 
with  heroic  rules  of  honour,  and  the  poet  presents  it  with  some 
care.  In  his  anger  Ganelon  almost  betrays  his  purpose  when  he 
says 

"  There  I  will  work  a  little  trickery, 

This  mighty  wrath  of  mine  I'll  thus  let  free.*'  2 

This  is  the  first  stage  in  Ganelon's  career  of  treachery.  His  pride 
has  been  wounded,  and  he  decides  to  avenge  it  on  Roland  who  has 
humiliated  him  before  the  Emperor  and  his  peers. 

Behind  this,  however,  lies  something  else.  As  the  poem 
advances,  it  is  revealed  that  Ganelon  has  long  hated  Roland 
because  of  his  pride  and  presumption.  This  becomes  clear  when 
Ganelon  rides  off  with  Blancandrin  and  begins  to  plot  Roland's 
destruction.  He  argues  that  peace  is  impossible  so  long  as  Roland 
lives,  and  says  that  his  pride  will  in  the  end  destroy  him  : 

"  His  cruel  pride  must  shortly  him  confound, 
Each  day  t'wards  death  he  goes  a  little  down, 
When  he  be  slain,  shall  peace  once  more  abound."  3 

Even  before  he  proposes  his  plot  to  Marsilies  and  is  still  acting  as 
Charles'  ambassador  and  repeating  what  he  has  be'en  told  to  say, 
Ganelon  cannot  but  let  slip  a  word  of  abuse  of  Roland  for  his 

1  Roland,  286-91.  2  Ibid.  300-301.  3  Ibid.  389-91. 

3°7 


HEROIC  POETRY 

pride,  when  he  tells  of  the  proposed  division  of  Spain  which  the 
Emperor  offers  : 

"  One  half  of  Spain  he'll  render  as  your  fief, 
The  rest  Rollanz,  his  nephew,  shall  receive, 
Proud  parcener  in  him  you'll  have  indeed."  l 

Much  later,  when  Ganelon  faces  condemnation  for  treason,  he 
repeats  this  view  of  Roland  and  advances  it  as  a  reason  for  his 
treachery  : 

"  Hatred  of  me  had  Rollant,  his  nephew ; 

So  he  decreed  death  for  me  and  dolour."  2 

Ganelon  holds  to  the  last  his  view  that  Roland  wished  to  destroy 
him  by  sending  him  on  the  mission  to  Marsilies. 

A  third  element  in  the  portrayal  of  Ganelon  is  the  poet's 
suggestion  that  he  is  avaricious  and  takes  bribes  from  the  enemy. 
The  gifts  which  he  receives  are  enumerated  at  some  length,  and, 
as  he  receives  each,  Ganelon  suggests  that  he  is  party  to  a  bargain, 
which  he  seals  by  some  such  words  as  "  So  be  it,  as  you  com- 
mand "  or  "  It  shall  be  done  ".  Much  later  the  same  theme  is 
taken  up  when  Ganelon  gives  as  a  reason  for  disliking  Roland  his 
tendency  to  take  too  great  a  share  of  spoil : 

"  He  did  from  me  much  gold  and  wealth  forfeit, 
Whence  to  destroy  and  slay  him  did  I  seek."  3 

This  completes  the  poet's  conception  of  Ganelon's  psychology, 
and  in  the  final  picture  the  different  elements  cohere  without 
difficulty.  He  has  always  hated  Roland,  partly  because  in  his 
avarice  he  thinks  that  Roland  deprives  him  of  his  just  profits, 
partly  because  Roland  has  always  been  overbearing  with  him. 
This  old  hatred  reaches  a  climax  when  Roland  suggests  that 
Ganelon  should  go  on  the  embassy.  Ganelon  then  feels  that 
Roland  wishes  to  have  him  killed  and  is  furious  that  he  should  be 
made  to  look  like  a  coward.  The  poet  sees  Ganelon's  character 
and  motives  quite  clearly,  but  presents  them  piecemeal  as  his 
narrative  demands. 

\JThe  poet  of  Beowulf  attempts  a  more  complex  piece  of  psy- 
chology when  he  portrays  Unferth,  whose  name  means  "  mar 
peace  ",  and  whose  history  does  not  dispose  us  to  like  him,  since 
he  has  killed  his  brother  4  and  is,  according  to  Beowulf,  destined 
to  receive  his  punishment  in  Hell.5  On  his  first  appearance  he 
makes  an  unfavourable  impression,  when  he  questions  Beowulf 
about  his  swimming-match  with  Breca  and  suggests  that,  since 

1  Roland,  472-4.  2  Ibid.  3771-2.  3  Ibid.  3758-9. 

*  Beowulf,  587  ff.,  1167  ff.  5  Ibid.  588  ff. 

308 


SOME  PECULIARITIES  OF  COMPOSITION 

Beowulf  lost  in  it,  he  is  not  likely  to  do  better  in  his  encounter  with 
Grendel.  His  words  justify  the  poet's  description  of  him  as  the 
most  envious  of  men.1  Beowulf  answers  him,  but  the  poet  omits 
to  tell  us  how  this  answer  affects  Unferth,  thus  leaving  us  in  the 
dark  about  his  future  development.  The  picture  so  presented  is  of 
an  aristocratic  Thersites,  or  even  of  the  wicked  counsellor  who 
sows  discord  and  envy  in  an  honourable  and  courteous  court. 
But  later  the  poet  corrects  this.  When  Beowulf  prepares  to 
assault  GrendeFs  Dam,  Unferth  hands  him  the  sword  Hrunting, 
and  the  poet  explains  how  this  change  of  mind  has  come  : 

Indeed  he  recalled  not,      Ecglaf 's  kinsman 
Strong  in  might,      what  he  had  spoken  before, 
With  wine  drunken,      when  that  weapon  he  lent 
To  a  better  swordsman  ;      himself,  he  durst  not 
Under  the  rush  of  the  waves      risk  his  life, 
Act  with  lordship  ;      lost  he  thereby  glory, 
An  excellent  fame.2 

Unferth,  who  at  first  sight  seemed  the  incarnation  of  envy,  is  now 
seen  to  be  a  not  very  brave  man,  who  becomes  braver  in  his  cups, 
but  is  still  capable  of  a  generous  action.  In  him  the  poet  attempts 
something  difficult  and  has  to  advance  by  bold  steps  which  may 
create  uneasiness.  But  he  could  hardly  do  otherwise.  His  tech- 
nique demands  that  a  man  should  be  presented  in  emphatic,  hard 
lines,  and  if  he  is  at  all  complicated,  his  qualities  must  be  revealed 
in  turn  until  a  complete  picture  of  him  emerges.  1\ 

In  the  extended  scale  of  a  large  epic  the  presentation  of 
character  presents  greater  difficulties  and  may  lead  to  greater 
misunderstanding,  as  with  Achilles  in  the  Iliad.  The  plot  of  the 
Iliad  turns,  as  the  poet  says  at  the  outset,  on  the  wrath  of  Achilles, 
and  Book  I  tells  how  this  began.  Agamemnon  insists  upon  taking 
from  Achilles  the  captive  girl  Briseis,  and  Achilles  resents  this  as 
an  affront  to  his  pride.  At  first  he  wishes  to  kill  Agamemnon,  but 
is  prevented  from  doing  so  by  the  intervention  of  Athene.  He 
retires  to  his  tent  and  asks  his  mother,  the  goddess  Thetis,  to  help 
him.  He  has  now  formed  his  plan.  He  has  yielded  Briseis  to 
Agamemnon,  but  cherishes  a  bitter  resentment,  and  his  consolation 
now  is  the  hope  that  he  will  see  Agamemnon  and  the  other 
Achaean  chieftains  humiliated  by  defeat  when  he  is  absent  from 
battle.  He  believes,  correctly  enough,  that  in  his  absence  the 
Trojans  will  prevail  and  the  Achaeans  do  little  against  them.  In 
this  his  injured  pride  hopes  to  find  satisfaction  and  revenge.  His 
plan  is  quite  explicit.  Thetis  is  to  ask  Zeus 

1  Ibid.  501  ff.  2  Ibid.  1465-71. 

309 


HEROIC  POETRY 

If  he  be  willing  to  grant  his  succour  unto  the  Trojans, 

And  to  defeat  the  Achaeans  among  their  ships  at  the  sea-shore, 

Slaying  them  so  that  they  learn  what  boons  their  king  has  bestowed 

them  ; 

And  Agamemnon,  who  rules  far  and  wide,  son  of  Atreus,  may  also 
Know  of  his  doom,  that  he  failed  to  honour  the  best  of  Achaeans.1 

This  is  a  perfectly  clear  scheme,  and  the  Iliad  begins  with  it.  Just 
as  Ganelon,  in  his  sense  of  injury  against  Roland,  plots  his  destruc- 
tion and  his  army's,  so  Achilles  plots  the  defeat  of  Agamemnon 
and  his  army  that  he  himself  may  be  missed  and  so  honoured. 
To  this  his  injured  pride  drives  him. 

Achilles'  plan  works.  Before  long  he  is  so  sorely  needed  that 
Agamemnon  and  tne  other  leaders  decide  to  make  amends  to 
him  in  the  hope  that  he  will  return  to  the  battlefield.  Agamemnon 
is  prepared  to  humble  himself,  and  his  offers  of  amends  are  on  a 
royal  scale.  But  Achilles  rejects  them  categorically.  In  present- 
ing this  the  poet  may  seem  to  make  Achilles'  behaviour  inconsistent 
with  his  original  motives  of  wrath  and  injured  pride.  He  now 
asserts  that  a  man's  life  is  worth  more  than  any  riches  and  urges 
the  Achaeans  to  go  away  and  think  of  some  other  plan.  Now  this 
point  of  view  is  not  inconsistent  with  Achilles'  first  outburst  of 
wrath  against  Agamemnon.  He  has  had  time  to  think  about  his 
grievances  and  formed  a  general  theory  about  them.  This  is  true 
to  his  character  and  to  life,  but  Homer  does  not  show  how  Achilles 
has  passed  from  his  first  wild  wrath  to  a  meditative  and  determined 
melancholy.  The  lack  of  intervening  links  is  due  to  the  conditions 
of  oral  recitation.  All  the  poetry  must  be  given  to  the  present 
situation,  in  which  Achilles  rejects  the  offers  of  Agamemnon.  To 
make  the  rejection  effective  Homer  puts  Achilles  in  this  grave 
mood  and  gives  him  an  abundance  of  high  poetry.  When  it  comes 
to  this  scene,  the  audience  will  have  forgotten,  more  or  less,  about 
the  original  wrath  and  be  interested  mainly  in  what  Achilles  now 
feels  and  says.  This  Homer  presents  with  great  imagination  and 
power.  It  is  not  inconsistent  with  what  has  preceded  it,  and  is 
indeed  a  subtle  development  of  it,  but  we  must  supply  for  our- 
selves the  steps  in  the  process  which  has  led  from  the  one  stage  to 
the  other. 

The  third  stage  in  Achilles'  story  is  after  his  rejection  of  the 
embassy.  He  watches  the  battle  and  knows  that  the  Achaeans  are 
suffering  humiliation  and  defeat  according  to  his  plan.  Then  he 
says  to  Patroclus  some  words  which  have  caused  much  trouble  to 
the  commentators : 

1  //.  i,  408-12. 


SOME  PECULIARITIES  OF  COMPOSITION 

"  Now,  as  I  think,  the  Achaeans  will  stand  by  my  knees  in  petition. 
On  them  cometh  a  need  they  cannot  endure  any  longer. "  l 

This  is  Achilles'  hour  of  triumph,  and  in  it  he  speaks  as  if  he  had 
not  recently  received  an  embassy  asking  for  his  help.  The 
contradiction  is  perhaps  more  apparent  than  real.  When  the 
embassy  came,  there  was  still  hope  of  an  Achaean  recovery,  as 
Diomedes  said  at  the  time  ;  now  the  situation  is  desperate.  Then 
the  proposals  made  were  handsome  but  not  abject,  but  this  is  what 
Achilles  now  expects.  The  later  words  can  in  fact  be  squared 
with  the  earlier  occasion,  though  we  may  still  feel  that  they  are 
awkward.  So  indeed  they  are,  if  we  forget  the  conditions  of  oral 
composition.  But  since  the  poet  concentrates  on  the  present 
moment  and  makes  everything  of  it,  he  does  not  refer,  even  by 
implication,  to  the  earlier  occasion,  but  thinks  only  of  the  present 
crisis.  In  consequence,  he  uses  a  theme  which  is  perfectly  to  the 
point  and  causes  trouble  only  when  we  connect  it  too  closely 
with  what  has  happened  before.  Since  his  audience  is  not  likely 
to  do  that,  there  is  no  real  trouble.  In  these  three  scenes  Homer 
develops  Achilles'  character  from  his  first  outbreak  of  wrath 
through  his  deeper  thoughts  on  life  and  death  to  the  moment 
when  his  plan  seems  successful  and  his  triumph  complete. 

Another  result  of  the  poet's  concentration  on  his  immediate 
task  is  that  he  may  neglect  chronology  at  the  expense  of  coherence. 
For  instance,  Homer  places  the  events  of  his  Iliad  in  the  tenth 
and  last  year  of  the  siege  of  Troy.  This  he  says  more  than  once,2 
and  it  is  important  to  his  main  plan.  The  crisis  of  the  Iliad  is  the 
death  of  Hector,  and,  when  he  is  dead,  Troy  is  ready  for  capture. 
But  though  this  is  the  main  plan,  there  are  certain  episodes  which 
do  not  fit  easily  into  it  and  have  made  scholars  suggest  that  Homer 
at  times  follows  a  tradition  which  made  the  Trojan  War  last  for 
only  a  few  months.  Certainly  in  the  first  books  of  the  Iliad  there 
are  episodes  which  would  be  more  suited  to  the  beginning  of  a  war 
than  to  its  tenth  year.  When  Homer  gives  a  catalogue  of  the 
Achaean  forces  as  they  gathered  at  Aulis  before  setting  out  for 
Troy,  he  goes  back  to  the  beginning  of  the  war.  When  Helen 
points  out  to  Priam  from  the  walls  of  Troy  the  chief  Achaean 
leaders,  she  does  what  would  be  probable  in  the  first  year  of  the 
war,  but  is  hardly  probable  in  the  tenth.  When  Menelaus  fights 
Paris  in  single  combat,  they  do  what  the  two  nen  most  concerned 
with  the  origin  of  the  war  might  well  have  doru  at  its  start  but  can 
hardly  have  left  until  near  its  end,  especially  as  both  sides  agree  to 

1  //.  xi,  609-10. 
2  Ibid,  ii,  134,  295,  328  ff.  ;  xii,  15  ;  xxiv,  765. 

311  x 


HEROIC  POETRY 

end  the  war  according  to  the  result  of  this  duel.  On  these  occasions 
we  undoubtedly  feel  that  the  tenth  year  of  the  war  is  an  odd  time 
for  such  events  to  happen  and  wonder  why  Homer  has  arranged 
things  in  this  way. 

In  answer  to  these  doubts  we  may  in  the  first  place  note  that, 
though  Homer  says  at  least  five  times  that  the  war  has  lasted  for 
ten  years,  he  does  this  only  when  its  long  duration  is  relevant  to 
some  immediate  point  in  the  story.  In  Book  II,  for  instance,  it 
is  relevant,  since  it  is  part  of  Agamemnon's  plan  to  test  the  morale 
of  the  army  to  say  that  the  war  has  lasted  too  long.  In  Book  XII 
it  is  relevant  to  the  great  dyke  which  the  Achaeans  build  to  protect 
their  ships  and  which  lasts  till  the  end  of  the  war.  In  Book  XXIV 
it  is  relevant  to  Helen's  complaint  that  she  has  been  away  a  long 
time  from  her  home  and  her  family.  The  ten  years'  duration  of  the 
war  is  known  to  Homer  and  used  by  him  when  he  can  make  a 
special  point  with  it.  It  is,  as  it  were,  at  the  back  of  his  mind  and 
comes  to  the  front  when  occasions  arise  which  are  connected  with 
it.  Then  he  mentions  it  in  order  that  he  may  drive  some  point 
home.  But  this  does  not  mean  that  he  is  always  thinking  of  it  or 
always  feels  a  need  to  stress  it.  On  the  contrary,  with  that  lack  of 
interest  in  chronology  which  seems  to  be  natural  to  the  oral  poet's 
outlook,  he  sometimes  disregards  it  completely,  and  we  can  see 
what  he  gains  by  doing  so. 

Homer's  poem  is  an  Iliad,  a  poem  on  the  siege  of  Troy,  but  his 
sense  of  craftsmanship  forbids  him  to  treat  it  episodically  as  a 
mere  chronicle.  He  takes  instead  a  crisis  and  builds  episodes 
round  it.  None  the  less  he  wishes  to  keep  to  his  theme  of  the 
siege,  if  only  to  provide  a  wide  stage  for  his  main  characters.  He 
has  thus  to  deal  with  two  large  armies,  each  containing  a  number 
of  famous  heroes.  He  cannot  take  it  for  granted  that  his  audience 
will  know  what  heroes  are  fighting  on  each  side,  or  what  their  titles 
and  histories  and  kingdoms  are.  So  to  make  his  position  clear  he 
includes  in  his  poem  a  Catalogue  of  the  Achaean  forces  as  they 
gathered  at  Aulis  before  sailing  to  Troy  and  another,  shorter 
Catalogue  of  their  Tro j  an  opponents.  The  first  of  these  Catalogues 
is  chronologically  out  of  place,  since  it  portrays  a  state  of  affairs 
ten  years  earlier  than  the  main  events  of  the  Iliad  and  is  not  even 
placed  at  Troy.  Nor  is  it  entirely  in  harmony  with  the  rest  of  the 
poem.  In  its  enumeration  of  the  Achaean  kingdoms  it  mentions 
several  heroes  who  have  little  or  no  part  in  the  main  text,  while 
others  are  already  dead  before  the  plot  opens.  Nor  does  its 
account  of  their  relative  importance,  judged  by  the  size  of  their 
domains  and  the  number  of  their  ships,  correspond  with  that  of  the 

312 


SOME  PECULIARITIES  OF  COMPOSITION 

rest  of  the  poem.  Odysseus,  for  instance,  is  of  little  account  in  the 
Catalogue,  but  of  great  account  in  the  main  poem.  Homer  treats 
this  historical  document  as  it  deserves.  It  gives  his  credentials, 
but,  after  presenting  it,  he  can  go  his  own  way,  not  indeed  in 
defiance  of  it,  but  certainly  not  worrying  too  much  about  it.  It 
helps  to  justify  him  in  making  his  poem  an  Iliad  and  shows  the 
world  in  which  his  events  are  set.  It  does  not  matter  that  it 
belongs  to  an  earlier  date  than  the  last  year  of  the  siege  of  Troy  or 
that  much  of  its  information  is  irrelevant  to  the  story.  It  is  useful 
where  it  comes,  since  it  sets  the  stage  and  gives  the  necessary 
information  on  the  army-lists  of  the  opposing  forces  in  the  Trojan 
War. 

A  little  later  Homer  makes  Helen  and  Priam  watch  the  Achaean 
forces  from  the  wall  of  Troy,  and  in  answer  to  Priam's  questions 
Helen  identifies  Agamemnon,  Odysseus,  and  Ajax.  It  does  not 
matter  that  Priam  has  had  nearly  ten  years  to  learn  who  they  are. 
For  the  moment  we  forget  that  it  is  the  tenth  year  of  war,  and  are 
interested  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  the  chief  Achaean  leaders 
and  to  know  what  they  look  like.  The  heroes  whom  Helen  describes 
in  their  physical  appearance  and  in  some  of  their  habits  are  going 
to  play  a  large  part,  and  there  is  undeniably  an  advantage  in  having 
them  presented  in  this  vivid  way.  No  doubt  any  poem  on  the 
Trojan  War  would  have  some  such  means  of  identification,  and 
Homer  was  right  in  not  allowing  his  theme  of  the  tenth  year  to 
prevent  him  from  using  this  useful  device.  So  too  with  the  duel 
between  Paris  and  Menelaus.  The  appropriate  time  for  this  was 
certainly  before  the  general  slaughter  began  at  the  start,  when  it 
would  have  saved  much  trouble  to  have  the  issue  settled  by  the 
two  men  for  whom  the  war  was  fought.  This  duel  may  well  have 
been  a  traditional  element  in  the  story  of  Troy  and  is  anyhow  a 
good  theme,  since  it  brings  the  two  heroes  face  to  face.  The  fact 
that  it  fails  to  produce  any  decisive  result  makes  it  easier  to  intro- 
duce it  into  a  late  stage  of  the  war,  and  there  is  nothing  wrong  in 
Homer's  use  of  it.  But  of  course  when  the  original  audiences 
heard  of  it,  they  would  hardly  trouble  about  the  time  of  its 
occurrence  but  accept  it  as  an  episode  which  is  exciting  for  its 
own  sake. 

Time  presents  another  difficulty  to  the  oral  poet.  He  has  no 
easy  way  to  depict  contemporaneous  actions.  In  a  book  this 
presents  no  difficulty,  but  the  oral  poet,  with  his  concentration  on 
one  thing  at  a  time,  has  no  ready  means  to  suggest  that  something 
else  happens  somewhere  else  at  a  given  time.  His  method  is  to 
neglect  the  difficulty  and  present  as  happening  in  sequence  events 

3*3 


HEROIC  POETRY 

which  really  happen  simultaneously.  This  is  what  the  poet  of 
Roland  does  in  the  battle  of  Roncesvalles.  We  are  presented  with 
a  series  of  small  encounters  which  might  suggest  to  a  prosaic  mind 
that  when  Roland  is  fighting  a  Saracen,  Oliver,  Turpin,  and  the 
rest  do  nothing.  Of  course  the  poet  does  not  mean  this,  but  he 
has  no  available  means  to  depict  actions  occurring  at  the  same  time. 
Homer  is  clearly  troubled  by  the  same  difficulty  in  the  fighting- 
scenes  of  the  Iliad.  At  one  point  he  says  that  the  fighting  went  on 

While  the  morning  endured  and  the  holy  day  was  still  waxing,1 

and  suggests  that  it  is  getting  towards  noon.  Then  much  later  he 
says  that  the  fighting  went  on 

White  the  sun  in  its  march  bestrode  the  centre  of  heaven.2 

Between  the  two  there  can  at  the  best  be  only  a  few  hours,  but  an 
enormous  lot  of  fighting  has  taken  place.  Various  warriors  have 
gone  out,  done  their  best,  and  retired.  The  audience,  hearing 
perhaps  the  poem  piecemeal,  will  not  be  much  troubled  by  the 
lack  of  precise  indications  of  time,  and  Homer's  only  way  to  convey 
many  contemporaneous  actions  is  to  set  them  out  in  a  series.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  Odyssey  he  is  faced  by  a  graver  problem.  He 
has  two  main  themes  which  he  develops  separately  at  some  length  ; 
first,  Telemachus'  situation  in  Ithaca  and  his  voyage  in  search  of 
news,  then  Odysseus'  departure  from  Ogygia.  He  begins  the  first 
with  a  council  in  heaven  which  sends  Athene  to  Ithaca,  where  she 
gets  things  moving.  This  carries  on  the  story  for  four  books,  but 
then  Odysseus  too  has  to  be  started.  The  subject  has  been 
broached  at  the  first  council,  but  some  of  the  audience  may  not 
have  heard  this,  and  others  may  have  forgotten  its  details.  So 
Homer  tells  of  it  again.  This  second  council  is  really  the  same  as 
the  first,  but  this  time  it  leads  not  to  the  arrival  of  Athene  in 
Ithaca  but  the  arrival  of  Hermes  in  Ogygia  with  orders  to  Calypso 
to  send  Odysseus  away.  The  technique  is  primitive,  and  other 
poets  do  not  use  it,  but  we  can  see  that  for  Homer,  who  had  to 
keep  each  section  of  his  story  clear  and  coherent,  it  was  a  useful 
device. 

In  addition  to  the  special  difficulties  caused  by  oral  composition 
the  heroic  poet  has  to  face  others  arising  from  the  nature  of  his 
material.  This  material  is  for  the  most  part  traditional.  He  learns 
the  outlines  of  stories  when  he  learns  his  formulae  and  devices, 
and  to  them  on  the  whole  he  adheres.  He  may  of  course  some- 

1  //.  xi,  84.  2  Ibid,  xvi,  777. 

3H 


SOME  PECULIARITIES  OF  COMPOSITION 

times  invent  a  new  story,  but  his  audience  will  normally  expect 
him  to  tell  familiar  tales,  even  if  he  gives  them  his  own  individual 
stamp.  He  is  free  to  invent  details  within  a  given  frame  and  even 
to  alter  quite  important  elements  in  the  plot.  In  composition  he 
draws  upon  the  traditional  stories  and  tells  them  in  his  own  way. 
This  too  has  its  perils.  Since  the  stories  are  both  traditional  and 
changeable,  he  may  fail  to  make  all  his  points  clear  or  to  make  the 
most  of  a  dramatic  opportunity.  Since  he  probably  knows  several 
variant  versions  of  any  single  story,  he  may  confuse  them  and 
produce  something  which  is  neither  very  clear  nor  very  dramatic. 
Of  course  good  poets  know  this  danger  and  usually  surmount  it, 
but  others,  who  are  less  confident  or  less  gifted,  may  fall  into  it 
and  produce  something  indecisive  or  muddled.  This  is  hardly 
true  of  those  poets  whose  poems  were  written  down  long  ago,  but 
it  is  applicable  to  existing  bards  whose  oral  performances  have 
been  recorded  in  recent  years,  and  through  their  occasional 
failures  we  can  see  what  difficulties  faced  Homer  and  the  poets  of 
Roland  and  Beowulf.  R 

An  experienced  bard,  who  knows  his  stones  well  and  has  told 
them  many  times,  may  suffer  from  over-confidence  and  careless- 
ness about  details.  He  may  do  his  work  so  easily  and  so  mechanic- 
ally that  he  preserves  certain  points  without  fully  understanding 
their  significance  or  making  it  plain.  For  instance,  a  famous 
Russian  bard  called  "  the  Bottle  "  tells  the  story  of  Staver's  wife, 
who  seeks  to  rescue  her  husband  by  disguising  herself  as  a  man  and 
coming  to  Vladimir's  court.  Vladimir  and  his  womenfolk  are  a 
little  suspicious  of  her  and  all  too  ready  to  examine  any  evidence 
she  may  provide  of  her  sex.  One  of  the  tests  turns  on  her  going  to 
bed,  and  the  imprint  she  leaves  on  the  bedding.  "  The  Bottle  " 
tells  of  this  in  a  muddled  way.  The  alleged  man,  for  no  obvious 
reason,  acts  as  follows  : 

When  he  entered  the  warm  bed 

And  lay  down  on  the  wooden  bedstead, 

He  laid  his  head  where  his  feet  should  be 

And  laid  his  feet  on  the  pillow. 

When  Vladimir  of  royal  Kiev  arrived 

And  looked  into  the  warm  bed, 

There  are  the  broad  heroic  shoulders.1 

To  understand  the  full  import  of  this  manoeuvre  and  its  effect  on 
Vladimir  we  must  look  at  another  version,  in  which  Vladimir 
promises  his  daughter  to  make  the  test  in  words  which  leave  no 
obscurity  : 

1  Rybnikov,  i,  p.  zoy  ;   Chadwick,  R.H.P.  p.  128. 

315 


HEROIC  POETRY 

"  We  will  ensconce  him  in  the  royal  feather  bed. 

If  he  is  a  man,  there  will  be  a  little  hollow  where  his  shoulders  have 

pressed, 
But  if  a  woman,  it  will  be  under  the  hips."  1 

Staver's  wife  foresees  this  difficulty  and  surmounts  it  by  lying 
with  her  feet  on  the  pillow.  "  The  Bottle  ",  whether  from 
forgetfulness  or  carelessness,  has  left  the  point  obscure. 

Another  Russian  bard,  Fedotov,  makes  similar  slips  in  his 
delightful  account  of  Vasili  Buslaev.  Vasili  is  a  bumptious 
playboy,  whose  exuberant  spirits  take  the  form  of  attacking  his 
fellow  townsmen  and  causing  much  trouble  and  annoyance.  His 
mother  does  her  best  to  bring  him  to  reason,  but  her  first  efforts 
meet  with  humiliating  failure,  and  in  dealing  with  these  Fedotov 
shows  an  uncertain  touch.  After  trying  in  vain  to  persuade  the 
citizens  of  Novgorod  to  accept  gifts  in  amends  from  Vasili,  she 
behaves  in  what  looks  like  an  inexplicable  way  : 

Then  the  honourable  widow  Amelfa  Timoferovna 

Turned  away  from  the  honourable  feast, 

And  kicked  with  her  right  foot 

That  cudgel  of  maple-wood  — 

And  the  cudgel  flew  away  behind  the  fence, 

Behind  the  fence,  scattering  everything  in  its  course. 

Vasili  slept  till  dawn  and  took  his  ease, 

Unconscious  of  the  misfortunes  which  had  befallen  him.2 

To  understand  this  we  must  look  at  other  versions  of  the  story, 
in  which  we  find  that  Vasili's  mother  has  hidden  his  club,  given 
him  a  sleeping  potion  and  locked  him  up.  Later  in  the  poem  a 
similar  obscurity  arises.  Vasili  has  gone  out  with  his  club, 

And  an  old  monk  from  the  Andronova  monastery  met  Vasili, 

On  the  bridge  over  the  Volkhov, 

Wearing  on  his  head  the  great  bell  of  St.  Sophia. 

Fedotov  has  here  omitted  to  tell  that  after  Vasili  has  fought  for 
some  time  and  killed  a  number  of  citizens,  the  others  go  to  his 
mother  who  advises  them  to  persuade  his  godfather,  an  old  monk, 
to  appease  him.  The  monk  does  his  best,  but  is  killed  by  Vasili. 
Perhaps  the  audience  would  know  the  story  well  enough  not  to  be 
troubled  by  this  important  omission,  but  none  the  less  it  illustrates 
a  difficulty  in  oral  composition. 

The  nature  of  the  traditional  material  may  create  curious 
situations.  If  a  story  has  a  wide  popularity  and  is  told  by  many 
poets,  it  may  grow  into  different  versions  which  seem  to  have  little 

1  Gilferding,  ii,  p.  410. 
2  Rybnikov,  i,  p.  373  ;   Chadwick,  R.H.P.  p.  148. 

316 


SOME  PECULIARITIES  OF  COMPOSITION 

connection  with  one  another  and  are  eventually  treated  as  separate 
episodes  in  a  hero's  career.  We  can  in  such  cases  discern  a  basic 
story  and  see  how  it  has  been  developed  in  different  directions. 
But  of  course  a  poet,  who  is  interested  in  all  that  happens  to  a  hero, 
may  not  see  or  care  that  two  or  more  stories  are  essentially  varia- 
tions of  a  single  one  and  may  even  combine  them  in  one  poem. 
This  sometimes  leads  to  curious  results.  A  favourite  Russian 
story  is  of  the  fight  between  Alyosha  Popovich  and  Tugarin,  the 
Dragon's  son.  There  are  of  course  many  kinds  of  fight,  and 
Alyosha  kills  Tugarin  in  more  than  one  way.  But  this  variety  has 
led  to  an  odd  result  in  the  version  recorded  by  Kirsha  Danilov.1 
This  falls  into  two  parts.  In  the  first  part  Alyosha  encounters 
Tugarin,  refuses  his  offer  of  friendship,  cuts  off  his  head,  takes  off 
his  robe,  and  rides  off  to  Vladimir.  It  is  a  complete  story  and 
needs  no  more  than  it  says.  But  the  bard  then  continues  to  tell 
how  Tugarin  follows  Alyosha  to  Kiev  and  the  two  engage  in  single 
combat  which  ends  with  Tugarin 's  death.  What  has  happened  is 
quite  clear.  The  poet  knew  of  two  stories.  In  one  Alyosha  kills 
Tugarin  in  the  country,  in  the  other  in  Kiev.  For  some  reason 
the  poet  feels  that  he  must  tell  both  and  does  so  by  the  clumsy 
expedient  of  bringing  Tugarin  to  life  after  he  has  been  killed. 

V^mch  cases  show  how  a  poet  can  fail  when  he  uses  two  variant 
versions  of  a  single  theme,  but  other  poets  can  do  this  and  make  a 
success  of  it.  If  the  basic  theme  is  sufficiently  simple  and  the 
variations  sufficiently  ingenious,  we  will  hardly  notice  that  a  single 
theme  has  been  used  twice,  nor  will  we  resent  it  if  we  do.  It  is, 
for  instance,  possible  that  in  Beowulf  the  twofold  scheme  by  which 
Beowulf  first  fights  Grendel  in  Hrothgar's  hall  and  then  fights  his 
Dam  in  her  cave  is  really  a  double  use  of  a  single  theme  by  which 
the  hero  fights  a  monster  and  its  mother.  In  the  parallel  stories, 
like  that  of  Ormr  the  Strong,  the  hero  encounters  both  the  monster 
and  its  dam  in  their  cave  and  defeats  them  there.  It  is  possible 
that  the  poet  of  Beowulf  knew  of  a  version  in  which  the  hero's 
exploits  were  not  in  the  hall  but  in  the  cave,  since  he  makes 
Beowulf  see  Grendel's  body  lying  in  the  cave  and  cut  off  the  head  : 

For  that  loss  repaid  him 
The  raging  champion,      inas  resting  he  saw 
Grendel  lie,      of  war  grown  weary, 
All  unliving,      as  erstwhile  had  left  him 
The  battle  in  Heorot.     His  body  sprang  aside 
When  he  after  death      endured  that  stroke.2 

1  Kireevski,  ii,  p.  74  ff. 
2  Beowulf,  1584-9. 

317 


HEROIC  POETRY 

The  poet  combines  his  two  themes  neatly,  and  there  is  no  contra- 
diction or  awkwardness.  And  we  can  see  why  he  does  it.  By 
having  two  fights,  one  in  the  hall  and  one  in  the  cave,  he  creates  a 
richer  situation  and  is  able  to  exploit  suspense  more  fully.  Each 
fight  is  differentiated  and  has  its  own  character,  and  we  do  not 
feel  that  the  poet  repeats  himself,  v 

It  is  possible  that  something  of  the  same  kind  may  be  seen  in 
Gilgamish.  When  Gilgamish  asks  Uta-Napishtim  for  the  secret 
of  immortality,  he  is  told  that  he  must  keep  awake  for  six  days  and 
six  nights  that  he  may  pray  and  find  out  who  will  assemble  the 
gods  to  help  him  in  his  need.  Gilgamish  tries  to  do  this,  but 
through  human  weakness  fails.  After  this  he  is  told  a  second  way 
of  becoming  immortal ;  he  must  fetch  a  plant  from  the  bottom  of 
the  sea.  This  he  succeeds  in  doing,  but  a  serpent  steals  the  plant, 
and  he  is  again  frustrated.  The  two  scenes  are  quite  separate,  and 
their  appearance  in  succession  stresses  the  almost  impossible 
difficulty  which  faces  Gilgamish  in  trying  to  do  what  he  wishes. 
But  we  may  suspect  that  originally  these  were  alternative  versions 
of  the  way  in  which  Gilgamish  tries  to  escape  from  death.  For  his 
story  one  such  episode  is  sufficient,  since  it  illustrates  the  inability 
of  men  to  break  the  laws  of  the  gods,  but  we  can  see  why  the  poet 
combines  two.  In  the  first  Gilgamish  fails  because  he  is  a  man, 
and  sleep  overcomes  him ;  in  the  second  he  fails  through  the 
malignity  of  chance,  which  sends  a  serpent  to  snatch  his  prize 
when  he  has  secured  it.  The  repetition  enhances  the  sense  of 
failure  and  is  no  doubt  used  for  that  reason. 

The  combination  of  variants  on  a  basic  theme  may  be  detected 
more  than  once  in  the  Odyssey.  The  most  basic  theme  of  all  is 
the  return  of  the  hero  after  many  years  to  his  home,  where  he  is 
faced  by  enemies  and  not  recognised  by  his  wife.  Such  stories 
were  told  of  other  men  than  Odysseus,  and  there  are  many  possible 
variations.  At  one  point  we  can  see  how  Homer  combines  two  of 
them.  The  returned  hero  is  a  great  archer,  renowned  for  his 
prowess  and  able  to  do  with  the  bow  what  hardly  anyone  else  can 
do.  In  the  process  of  revealing  who  he  is  he  has  to  show  his  strength 
and  skill  at  the  expense  of  his  enemies.  Here  Homer  uses  two 
themes  which  may  once  have  been  alternatives.  The  first  is  that 
in  which  Odysseus  is  able  to  string  the  bow  when  all  the  Suitors 
fail ;  the  second  when  he  does  his  exhibition  shot  down  the  line 
of  axes  arranged  in  the  hall.  The  first  shows  his  strength,  since  he 
alone  is  able  to  bend  the  bow  and  string  it ;  the  second  shows  his 
skill,  since  the  shot  causes  wonder  and  amazement.  In  the 
Odyssey  the  two  are  combined  and  both  are  a  preparation  to  the 

318 


SOME  PECULIARITIES  OF  COMPOSITION 

killing  of  the  Suitors.  But  originally  we  may  suspect  each  was 
used  separately  and  need  not  have  been  turned  to  any  other 
purpose  than  to  show  the  hero's  superiority.  Homer  works  both 
episodes  skilfully  into  his  plot.  The  stringing  of  the  bow  humili- 
ates and  frightens  the  Suitors  and  makes  them  aware  that  they  are 
confronted  with  a  dangerous  enemy ;  the  preparations  for  the 
shot,  with  the  suggestion  that  there  is  to  be  a  competition,  mean 
that  Odysseus  is  well  supplied  with  arrows  with  which  he  can 
soon  proceed  to  kill  the  Suitors.  There  is  no  contradiction  or 
awkwardness,  and  the  two  variants  are  used  for  two  distinct  and 
differentiated  actions. 

Another  example  of  this  art  from  the  Odyssey  may  be  seen  in 
the  episodes  of  Circe  and  of  Calypso.  In  Odysseus'  sojourn  with 
both  there  are  certain  obvious  similarities.  Each  is  a  goddess  who 
lives  on  a  remote  island ;  each  loves  Odysseus  and  gets  some 
satisfaction  from  him,  though  not  enough ;  each  in  the  end 
releases  him  to  go  home.  Behind  the  two  episodes  is  the  common 
theme  of  the  goddess  who  loves  a  man  and  has  in  due  course  to 
send  him  back  to  his  human  wife  whom  he  loves  more  than  her. 
But  from  this  common  basis  Homer  has  worked  out  variations  so 
great  that  the  two  episodes  are  quite  different.  Circe  lives  in  a 
palace,  Calypso  in  a  cave.  Circe  is  a  witch  who  turns  men  into 
beasts ;  Calypso  is  a  gentle  and  hospitable  hostess.  Odysseus 
arrives  at  Circe's  island  with  his  companions  on  a  ship,  at  Calypso's 
island  alone  as  a  castaway  from  shipwreck.  Circe  releases  Odysseus 
because  he  asks  her  to,  Calypso  because  the  gods  tell  her  to  do  so. 
Circe  tells  Odysseus  where  to  sail  and  what  to  do  ;  Calypso  merely 
helps  him  with  food  and  sails  for  his  voyage.  It  has  even  been 
surmised  that  Homer  invented  Calypso  because  he  had  to  make 
Odysseus  stay  somewhere  for  a  long  time  before  he  returns  home.1 
Be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  clear  that  the  names,  Circe  and  Calypso, 
indicate  some  original  difference  of  character.  Circe,  "  the 
hawk  ",  was  once  a  witch ;  Calypso,  "  the  concealer  ",  is  the  kind 
of  divine  being  with  whom  a  man  lives  outside  the  common  world. 
The  differentiation  between  the  two  may  well  have  begun  before 
Homer.  What  he  does  is  to  make  the  most  of  it,  so  that  we  do  not 
notice  that  he  is  using  two  variants  of